What sort of due diligence did Blue Arc Animation conduct regarding the rights they were allegedly getting from UM Corporation? We have conducted due diligence on numerous film projects in China and our efforts have saved more than one high-profile project from guaranteed litigation over the source material.Ĭhinese courts are getting better and better about enforcing copyrights.
CHINESE FILM ULTRAMAN LICENSE
Second, it’s an example of how NOT to license copyrighted content in China. What does all this have to do with China? First of all, this should be a wakeup call for anyone with a Chinese entity who thinks they don’t need to know where their company seal is at all times. I just checked the docket and the case, staffed by a number of big-firm LA litigators, is still going strong. Most recently, UM Corporation sued Tsuburuya in a Los Angeles federal court on May 19, 2015, alleging copyright infringement, breach of contract, and intentional interference with contractual relations.
The victories were only partial victories, and the key piece of evidence in Sompote’s favor is that the 1976 agreement, despite having a number of inaccuracies and other indicia of inauthenticity, was nonetheless chopped with Tsuburuya’s company seal. Back in the mid 2000s, Tsuburuya won several victories in Thai and Japanese courts, which seemed to bring things to a close, but not so much. The dispute has led to a number of lawsuits between Tsuburuya on the one hand, and Sompote and his successors in interest on the other. Tsuburuya has consistently held that the 1976 agreement is a forgery, not least because Sompote didn’t even mention the existence of such an agreement until 1995, after Noboru Tsuburaya had passed away. Sompote’s rights were then assigned to his son Perasit Saengduenchai, who in turn transferred them to UM Corporation, who in turn has licensed the rights to a number of companies all over the world. And UM Corporation contends that they own all foreign rights based on an alleged 1976 agreement in which Tsuburaya’s president Noboru Tsuburaya granted to Thai filmmaker Sompote Saengduenchai the exclusive, perpetual foreign rights to Ultraman. But Blue Arc contends that they got the rights from UM Corporation, another Japanese company. Ltd., the creator of Ultraman, alleges that Blue Arc Animation has no right to make an Ultraman film in China.
Japanese company Tsuburaya Productions Co.
CHINESE FILM ULTRAMAN MOVIE
A Chinese fan-created Ultraman movie a la Axanar would be amazing, but the producer of this film, Chinese film company Blue Arc Animation, is just making a blatant ripoff.
CHINESE FILM ULTRAMAN TV
I was a latchkey kid and every day after school my brother and I would come home and turn on KTVU and watch TV PoSo when I read last week’s China Film Insider story about an allegedly unauthorized Ultraman film being produced in China, it felt like a personal insult. When I was growing up, I watched a lot of television.