Studio Library
RKO Pictures LLC is the owner of all the trademarks and logos connected with RKO Radio Pictures Inc., as well as the rights concerning stories, screenplays (including 800 to 900 unproduced scripts), remakes, sequels, and prequels connected with the RKO library. The television, video, and theatrical distribution rights, however, are in other hands: The U.S. and Canadian TV—and, consequently, video—rights to the bulk of the RKO film library were sold at auction in 1971 after the holders, TransBeacon (a corporate descendant of C&C Television), went bankrupt. The auctioned rights were split between United Artists and Marian B. Inc. (MBI). In 1984, MBI created a subsidiary, Marian Pictures Inc. (MBP), to which it transferred its share of the RKO rights. Two years later GenCorp's subsidiaries, RKO General and RKO Pictures, repurchased the rights then controlled by MBP. In the meantime, United Artists had been acquired by MGM. In 1986, MGM/UA's considerable library, including its RKO rights, was bought by Turner Broadcasting for its new Turner Entertainment division. During RKO Pictures' brief Wesray episode, Turner acquired many of the distribution rights that had returned to RKO via MBP, as well as both the theatrical rights and the TV rights originally held back from C&C for the cities where RKO owned stations.
In October 1996, Turner Broadcasting was merged into Time Warner, which controls and distributes the bulk of the RKO library today, though RKO Pictures retains the copyright. As for RKO's primary release deals, the Disney pictures originally distributed by the studio are controlled by the Walt Disney Company. Rights to the Goldwyn features released by RKO, which had been held by the Samuel Goldwyn Company, are now controlled by MGM.
International ownership of TV and video distribution rights to RKO's library is divided on a virtual country-by-country basis: In the UK, many of the RKO rights are currently held by Universal Studios. In 1981, RAI, the public broadcasting service, acquired the Italian rights to the RKO library, which it now shares with Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest. In France, the rights are held by Ariès. The German rights were acquired in 1969 by KirchGruppe on behalf of its KirchMedia division, which went bankrupt in 2002. EOS Entertainment's Beta Film purchased many of KirchMedia's rights in 2004, and the library is now distributed by Kineos, created in 2005 as a Beta Film–KirchMedia joint venture. In Australia and New Zealand they were held by Communications and Entertainment Limited (CEL) who filled for bankruptcy in 1999, and reverted to Magna Pacific. In Japan as of 2009 all the RKO films are in the public domain under Japanese copyright law and have been distributed through various distributors.
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Famous quotes containing the words studio and/or library:
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“With sighs more lunar than bronchial,
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