Paramount Pictures - The Paramount Library

The Paramount Library

Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, many of Paramount's early cartoons, shorts, and feature films are owned by numerous entities. In the 1950s, as a consequence of the 1948 Supreme Court verdict, the studio saw little value in its library, and decided to sell off its back catalog.

Balaban, consistent with his other decisions to sell off rights and dismantle Paramount's library, was of the opinion that there was no future economic value to "old" movies. This "strategy" of the gradual dismantling Paramount's assets and library has continued under current Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman who not only split the company in half and gave the television library and distribution rights to the feature films to CBS, but also sold off the Company's music library, Famous Music.

Except for the Superman cartoons and the features sold to MCA (to end up with Universal), most television prints of these films have had their titles remade to remove most traces of their connection to Paramount – the original copyright lines were left intact on Popeye cartoons (the Popeye cartoons have been restored for DVD release with the original Paramount titles).

As for distribution of the material Paramount itself still owns, it has been split in half, with Paramount themselves owning theatrical rights. But from 2006 to 2009, the library was distributed by CBS Television Distribution, the television distribution arm of CBS Paramount Television (now CBS Television Studios) – the films are now distributed by Trifecta Entertainment & Media on television.