SPC at the SEC

[ANE]

tl;dr I thought Disney owned everything Pizza Cats, worldwide and forever.  I seem to be wrong.
Background: Most, but not all, public companies in the USA must submit quarterly and annual reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Relevance: Pizza Cats history
Motivation: Shear curiosity
Format: Long post

On 27th September 1996, Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc. (as it was then known as) filed a "Registration of Securities"; a huge 1Mb text file. It seems to cover the formal merger of Saban Entertainment and Fox Children's Network, Inc. Here is the S-1 file the table below is from (Warning: over 1Mb). And here is the full list of SEC documents.

Here is a table which appears under the header "Intellectual Property":

	Copyrights	Trademarks	Territory	Television	Home Video	Theatrical	Non-Theatrical	Merchandising
Adventures of Oliver Twist	.	.	Worldwide	.	.	.	.	.
Big Bad Beetleborgs	.	.	Worldwide (except Asia)	.	.	.	.	.
Bobby's World	.	.	Worldwide	.	.	.	.	.
Bureau of Alien Detectors (B.A.D.)	.1	.1	International	.	.	.	.	.(worldwide)
Dragonball Z	V2	V2	United States	.	.	V	V	V
Eagle Riders	V3	.	Worldwide (except Asia)	.	.	.	.	.
Eek! Stravaganza	.	.	Worldwide	.	.	.	.	.
Life With Louie	.	.	Worldwide	.	.	.	.	.
Masked Rider	.	.	Worldwide	.	.	.	.	.
The Mouse and the Monster	.1	.1	International	.	.	.	.	.(worldwide)
Power Rangers Zeo	.	.	Worldwide (except Asia)	.	.	.	.	.
Samurai Pizza Cats	V4	.	Worldwide (except Asia)	.	.	.	.	.
Sweet Valley High	.	V	Worldwide	.	.	.	.	. (except publishing)
The Tick	.	.	Worldwide	.	.	.	.	.
The Why Why Family	.	.	Worldwide	.	.	.	.	.
X-Men	V5	V5	Worldwide	.	.	V	V	V

"." Company owns the intellectual property rights or programming distribution rights
"V" Company does not own the intellectual property rights or programming distribution rights
¹ Copyrights and trademarks are owned jointly with UPN.
² FUNimation and Toei Animation own copyrights and trademarks. The Company has exclusive U.S. distribution rights on a year-to-year basis through 2001.
₃ Tatsunoko and Intervision own copyrights. The Company has exclusive distribution rights through 2004, with a right to extend for 15 years.
⁴ Tatsunoko owns copyrights. Fox Kids/Saban has distribution rights through 2000, with a right to extend for 10 years.
⁵Marvel owns copyrights and trademarks. The Company has exclusive distribution rights for 15 years.
So? In 1996 Tatsunoko owned the copyrights to Samurai Pizza Cats, and Fox Kids/Saban had the trade mark and (non-exclusive) distribution rights for 4 more years. In 2000, the then Fox Family Worldwide, Inc. extends the distribution rights for 10 more years, and some time later the French DVD's are released. Ten more years after 2000 is 2010. Will the distribution rights for Samurai Pizza Cats be renewed by ABC Family Worldwide (Disney)? Do they even have an option to extend them? Is this the most dullest and boring Pizza Cats post in the history of crime fighting felines?

Having thought about it a bit more, it seems odd that Disney could be left with the English scripts (and translations) and the music used (Shuki Levy), but have no distribution rights to the cool moving pictures that go with them. Fat lot of good they are doing with any of them at the moment, but still...

If this is common knowledge, plain wrong or a big pile of "Teyandee", please let me know.

[Violet]

That's some good research.  I knew about the 10 year extension thing and I recall they did extend.  But 2010 is next year.  This might force some action one way or another.  If they do try to extend, it would only be worthwhile if they were actually going to do something with the show.  If they don't, that might be bad news for SPC, but may clear the way for Tatsunoko to release KNT.  It's also possible that they may want to sell the rights to someone else who might want to do something with it.
Really there's not much worse that can happen to our show than what's already happened: having it sit on the shelf doing nothing.

[sjonnoh]

so if I read this, the topic: request a release to DVD is now useless??

[Romero Anchovy]

I don't think so, I think if we send requests for SPC and they get enough they might renew it, but we only have a year to do so.

[Violet]

I don't think so, I think if we send requests for SPC and they get enough they might renew it, but we only have a year to do so.

We have a year to do so with the current people.  Everything can change after 2010.  I'm actually optimistic cause I think any change will be an improvement.

[Mechadon]

This is the change Obama promised. 

[ANE]

I may have a date. Source: Warning: 2Mb Text File

EXHIBIT 10.19
 
                    HOME VIDEO RIGHTS ACQUISITION AGREEMENT
                                   (DOMESTIC)

                           DATED AS OF AUGUST 8, 1996
1.   PARTIES:
     -------
     (a) Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc. ("FOX"), on the one
     hand; and

     (b) Saban Entertainment, Inc. ("SEI"), and Ventura Film Distributors, B.V.
     ("VENTURA") (collectively, "SABAN"), on the other hand.

...snip...

...A list identifying the titles of substantially every Program existing as of the
Warner Effective Date to which SEI and Ventura owns or controls the right of
Home Video Distribution of such Program in one or more Territories of the
Distribution Territory, and the expiration date of such right(s), is attached
hereto as EXHIBIT "A"...

"Warner Effective Date": I am thinking that this agreement is replacing an older one giving Warner Home Video all of these rights
OK, OK.. here:

TITLE	TYPE AND QUANTITY	TERRITORIES	TERM
Samurai Pizza Cats	Animated: 52 half-hour episodes	U.S. and Canada	Expires: 11/12/2000 [mm/dd/yyyy]

12th November 2000 plus 10 is 12th November 2010.
I say we just keep on asking. Can't hurt. (Don't bother asking "FOX", I don't think they have anything to do with this any more.)

As to next year, at the very least it would clear any problems in having KNT star in any kind of Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom sequel
Appendix:And as for the SEC documents, apart from this...:

1.  Saban hereby engages Fox to provide barter advertising sales for the 1996-97
broadcast season of the Saban Kids Network ("SKN") television programming,     
consisting of the following series (collectively "SKN Series"):                 

a.   Monday-through-Friday strip series¹:                             
(1)  Saban's Masked Rider                                   
(2)  Samurai Pizza Cats   
...

...and  "Futuristic feline superheroes save the world." in a table on the 1996-1997 season, there's no other mention found.
¹And if there are any "strip series" comments I'll bore you to death some more 

[formallykat]

This is the change Obama promised. 

Lol

[Fureon]

Hmm... well, let's see what happens now*.

[Razgrizblaze1]

My birthday marks the beginning of a new era for SPC? That or...just a pointless jab of comments that go nowhere...hehe...

[Blackcat]

Well, time will tell... that we will still not get an official DVD!

[Methid Man]

So um...anything happening yet?

-- Sam the Methid Man