I've never heard about this. Other details you can share?SunSpire wrote:What just crossed my mind ... wasn't there another "party" that once claimed to be the rightful owner of RB and its characters, universe etc. ? Could THEY have anything to do with this maybe?
"SunSpire"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_KlingIn the 1980s, Kling wrote and created the program Rainbow Brite that he licensed, solely for television syndication broadcast only. After Kling's death, his heirs sued Hallmark Cards, for copyright infringement of Kling’s property allegeding that Hallmark had stolen Kling’s property making Hallmark over $1 billion during his illness and thereafter. Kling’s case went up on appeal twice to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California. In the first appeal (Kling v. Hallmark), Kling’s heir won. The court found against Hallmark, ruling Kling’s case was not barred by laches, becoming the leading decision on laches still today of the Court. In a second appeal (Kling v. Hallmark), the 9th Circuit found for Kling’s heir, ruling Kling’s heir to be the copyright owner of Woody Kling’s Rainbow Brite works, but found Kling’s damages to be barred by the statute of limitations, awarding Klings’ heirs no money.
You'd think we'd get to a point when we're no longer surprised when Hallmark demonstrates an acute lack of intelligence.Rainbow Brite wrote:I sent them links to all of the various foreign DVD releases and just heard back:
"Thank you so much for providing those links to us. We have forwarded them to our Legal Department for continue research. The have confirmed that they are not legitimate sales. We also confirmed that no one should be selling Rainbow Brite DVD's."
Wow!
I wouldn't be so sure. My husband said he once found a bootleg CD being sold in Barnes and Noble (a huge book/media store in the states) and that that kind of thing happens all the time. Apparently it's extremely easy to get a UPC and/or ISBN number. So...I just don't know what to think.SunSpire wrote:They were also sold in official media stores such as HMV here in the UK and Karstadt in germany, they would not be selling bootlegs, that's far too risky for such huge companies.
Well, that's a good theory, Sunny. If Hallmark Europe is taking care of things, then maybe it was them who handed out the issue to make releases.SunSpire wrote:The german release by KSM has an exclusive interview with Jean Chalopin on it as well as detailed infos about Rainbow Brite. Sounds like an immense effort for a bootleg, no?
I can't help but think that Hallmark Europe is an entirely seperate functioning company to the american one, like Woolworths UK used to be fully independent from its US father until their bankruptcy 2 years ago, Woolworths Germany still exists, also fully independent and no company knows what the other is doing. Maybe they had given away DVD licenses without Hallmark US' knowing? Maybe that's why DVD releases exist everywhere except in the states?
As Chibi said, something's extremely fishy here ... I can't figure it out.
"SunSpire"
