[HRH The KING]

It's incredibly confusing.

[tomalak301]

^Yeah. I just went over there, and I don't think I can handle those current conditions. Hopefully the mod will reconfigure that part. As for everything else, it's a start.

[sir num nums]

Originally Posted by ST Yellowshirt

If you remember, the new TV shows aired on the UPN (which was a Paramount company). UPN paid a licensing fee back to Paramount Studios to create the TV series and in doing so UPN now owned the TV shows which they produced. When the companies split and UPN went to CBS (and ultimately became The CW) ownership of the TV series went to CBS. Hence you now have the series owned by CBS and the movies owned by Paramount.

Which is all owned by.... VIACOM

lol, plus I thought the CW was where CBS + Warner Bros Network combined UPN and The WB, a co-ownership.

And how did FOX think that My Network TV would work out? They only have 4 shows.

[HRH The KING]

Originally Posted by tomalak301

^Yeah. I just went over there, and I don't think I can handle those current conditions. Hopefully the mod will reconfigure that part. As for everything else, it's a start.

The boards have been flipped.

Back to normal now.

[ST Yellowshirt]

Paramount owns the rights to produce and distribute Star Trek movies, where as CBS own the rights to produce and distribute the TV shows. The fact that the characters are the same across both doesn't factor in at all. It's the distribution medium that matters (Film vs. TV). To confuse you even more, even though CBS owns the TV rights it's actually Paramount Home Entertainment that produces and distributes the TV show DVD's for CBS. In fact Paramount does the same for all CBS shows.

Originally Posted by starbase63

Okay then, so how does that work for the new movie...it's a movie being made by Paramount, but the setting and most of the characters are from the Original Series...a tv show. Does Paramount have to pay a royalty to CBS to use the TOS characters?

[Tom]

I would also throw in that CBS licensing is resposible Star Trek merchandise and some other mediums such as the licensing of books, magazines and games.

[Aaleck]

Then who determines what company gets to make toys, video games, etc?

[sir num nums]

Originally Posted by ST Yellowshirt

Paramount owns the rights to produce and distribute Star Trek movies, where as CBS own the rights to produce and distribute the TV shows. The fact that the characters are the same across both doesn't factor in at all. It's the distribution medium that matters (Film vs. TV). To confuse you even more, even though CBS owns the TV rights it's actually Paramount Home Entertainment that produces and distributes the TV show DVD's for CBS. In fact Paramount does the same for all CBS shows.

My head just exploded

So... Paramount is making a new movie right now, and if CBS wanted to they could create a new series for the CW/CBS and it could be unrelated to the new movie?

And if this forum is in no way related to the CBS owned startrek.com then what about the movies they have libraried on the site, and the movie section on the forum there? If CBS is for TV/DVD, then shouldn't they change startrek.com to reflect that? Something should be done, that site looks dead now, lol

[starbase63]

Originally Posted by ST Yellowshirt

Paramount owns the rights to produce and distribute Star Trek movies, where as CBS own the rights to produce and distribute the TV shows. The fact that the characters are the same across both doesn't factor in at all. It's the distribution medium that matters (Film vs. TV). To confuse you even more, even though CBS owns the TV rights it's actually Paramount Home Entertainment that produces and distributes the TV show DVD's for CBS. In fact Paramount does the same for all CBS shows.

So who actually owns the characters then, CBS Studios/CBS-Paramount television?

It really is still all one big happy family, isn't it?

[Michael Hinman]

Yeah, it's all rather confusing. What the mods keep talking about is distribution rights, but both studios still have rights to characters. In fact, from what I understand, Paramount has rights to the characters of DS9, Voy and ENT even though no movies have ever been made, as does CBS Interactive.

While there was a corporate split of Viacom, there are still a lot of inter-related subsidiaries, as always happen at corporate splits of this level.