What is the Copyright Status of the Original Dub?

[PokemonBWDub]

Not really surprised by this development, it would explain Viz's lack on care for every detail on this dub. I just pray to Luna that Viz manages to roll out a complete Blu-ray collection after November.

 

[Arian]

You know, as awesome as it is that the jerks at Viz are losing the license to the Sailor Moon franchise in the interest of distributing the show through Toei USA, why can't Toei do the same thing to FUNimation regarding the Dragon Ball franchise? They clearly have an interest in distributing everything they own internally (not a bad move, to be honest), so why so much sentiment towards the most irresponsible company that has ever licensed anime for American audiences?

But to stay on topic, I'm with the majority of the posters on this thread. I'd love to see the DiC/Cloverway dubs released on any format proper in this digital era. None of the parties involved (except for Viz) have anything to lose, really.

 

[blondibear_17]

You know, as awesome as it is that the jerks at Viz are losing the license to the Sailor Moon franchise in the interest of distributing the show through Toei USA, why can't Toei do the same thing to FUNimation regarding the Dragon Ball franchise? They clearly have an interest in distributing everything they own internally (not a bad move, to be honest), so why so much sentiment towards the most irresponsible company that has ever licensed anime for American audiences?

But to stay on topic, I'm with the majority of the posters on this thread. I'd love to see the DiC/Cloverway dubs released on any format proper in this digital era. None of the parties involved (except for Viz) have anything to lose, really.

So would Toei redub it or would they just distribute the Viz dub?

 

[Arian]

So would Toei redub it or would they just distribute the Viz dub?

I'm not sure, we'll have to see what happens in cases like these.

But I think unless Viz does something to dishonour Toei's principles (like what FUNimation did by bringing in TeamFourStar), they'll just syndicate Viz's California-based dub. Though in a perfect world, they'd ditch that dub and hire Ocean out of Vancouver, B.C. to do the dubbing. ^^

 

[sapphire91]

Guys, be real. They won't produce yet another dub of the show.

 

[NJ_]

You know, as awesome as it is that the jerks at Viz are losing the license to the Sailor Moon franchise in the interest of distributing the show through Toei USA, why can't Toei do the same thing to FUNimation regarding the Dragon Ball franchise? They clearly have an interest in distributing everything they own internally (not a bad move, to be honest), so why so much sentiment towards the most irresponsible company that has ever licensed anime for American audiences?

Both Dragon Ball & One Piece aren't tied to very controlling manga authors like Sailor Moon is with Takeuchi.

As for Toei distributing themselves, they tried that on multiple occasions here and ended up with failures because of their own incompetence.

So would Toei redub it or would they just distribute the Viz dub?

Considering they were part of the approvals of that dub (and there's video proof of this in one of the extras), it'll likely be the latter plus they too have worked with Studiopolis as seen with Digimon Data Squad and all of Adventure Tri so if they're to work on the Eternal movie dubs themselves, not much would change.

 

[blondibear_17]

Both Dragon Ball & One Piece aren't tied to very controlling manga authors like Sailor Moon is with Takeuchi.

As for Toei distributing themselves, they tried that on multiple occasions here and ended up with failures because of their own incompetence.



Considering they were part of the approvals of that dub (and there's video proof of this in one of the extras), it'll likely be the latter plus they too have worked with Studiopolis as seen with Digimon Data Squad and all of Adventure Tri so if they're to work on the Eternal movie dubs themselves, not much would change.

In that case I can see why it would be beneficial to them to cut Viz out since they honestly don't really need them. Even if Viz's releases went out of print wouldn't Toei just release some new maybe better version anyway?

 

[sapphire91]

In that case I can see why it would be beneficial to them to cut Viz out since they honestly don't really need them. Even if Viz's releases went out of print wouldn't Toei just release some new maybe better version anyway?

I second this. I am not in love with the dub. It is ok, it is not the best, but it is serviceable for people who prefer dubs. But VIZ messed up releasing the show with all sort of problems, crazy filtering and compression, cramming so many episodes in one disc for a non digitally produced show is crime. I have a feeling the dub will stay, but the show will be released again, assuring better video and audio quality in the future for all 5 seasons.

 

[Memento]

I can see there being another dub in 20 years (or even less) when text-to-speech AI gets more or less perfected. (And if you don't think dubbing with AI instead of real voice actors is the inevitable future with this keep-costs-low-to-maximize-profits industry, I have a bridge to sell you.)

 

[ChampionOfNuggets]

I can see there being another dub in 20 years (or even less) when text-to-speech AI gets more or less perfected. (And if you don't think dubbing with AI instead of real voice actors isn't the inevitable future with this keep-costs-low-to-maximize-profits industry, I have a bridge to sell you.)

Are you telling me Luna isn’t already dubbed by a text-to-speech AI?

 

[Nadia]

While perusing the U.S. Copyright Office's website, I found that they'd recently added a ton of listings for the first 65 episodes of the original/DiC dub (records for the remaining episodes, movies, the Viz dub, Crystal, most of the manga, etc, don't appear to have been digitized yet) so I decided to look through them. For the purposes of this thread, I'll be using the first episode ("A Moon Star is Born") as an example.

The episode's copyright was first registered on May 7, 1996, with "DIC Productions, LP, employer for hire" given as the work's author and copyright claimant.

A few years later, a copyright security agreement was filed on November 29, 2000, listing Chase Manhattan Bank as a second party. This was presumably done in preparation of Andy Heyward's buying back Disney's majority stake in DIC.

This agreement was then terminated on August 15, 2008 and a new one was filed on September 17, 2008, listing the Royal Bank of Canada (Toronto) as the second party. Again, this was presumably done pursuant to DIC's merger with Cookie Jar.

The most recent records were registered on May 30, 2012 (listing Cookie Jar Entertainment, Inc., and the Royal Bank of Canada as the parties involved, and on September 25, 2012 (listing only Cookie Jar and its subsidiaries). Again, this was presumably done pursuant to Cookie Jar's merger with DHX Media (now WildBrain).

This would all seem to suggest that DHX currently owns the copyright to the original DiC dub. (The status of the copyright on the movies and CWi dub, I'm not sure about.) Presumably Viz would need to work out a deal with them first if they wanted to re-release at least those episodes, but also presumably, DHX/WildBrain could simply try to work out a deal with Toei to release the old dub themselves. Maybe it's time to start a campaign?

This comes as a genuine surprise to me.

It was always my impression that the copyright of a dub reverts to the company granting the license for the anime when the license expires. In fact, I thought it was heavily implied, if not outright stated by Viz that this was the case for the old dub.

If that wasn't the case, then why wouldn't Viz say the material was legally unavailable instead of implying it couldn't be released due to being in bad/suboptimal condition? This would have gone a long way towards winning over fans of the old dub. Say, "Hey, this is the situation with the old dub. We can't release it now, but if you give us your money, we might be able to look into releasing it later." Instead, they decided "Oh, you old dub fans don't matter" and outright antagonized the fan base.

Oh, that's right, because when it comes to Sailor Moon, Viz knew they could give a half-way effort and the "true fans" will fall in line.

 

[flash over]

Viz (Charlene at least) stated from the get-go that the OG dub was “stuck in legal limbo.”

 

[Memento]

Speaking of that, based on this announcement, you don't have the DIC dub, you don't have the old syndicated television version of the show and it will not be made available at least through you, correct?

Charlene: It's just not available.

So what you're saying is, "please don't ask us about it ever again"?

Josh: (laugh) There's absolutely nothing wrong with a comparison to the old dub or to what DIC put out, especially because that's what some people can recall loving about the title and that's just fine. We're not trying to just do things different from them, what we're trying to do is make something that pays honor and respect to the original version of this, and that means we're offering everything to fans this time. It's not going to be censored, we're not going to hold back any episodes or seasons, you're getting everything.

Charlene: That's the thing, the original dub cut and spliced episodes together, shortening them, changing genders, changing relationships, changing a lot of stuff. There were complete episodes never shown before. So this will be the first time all 200 will be fully intact.

Exclusive Interview: Viz Media's Charlene Ingram and Josh Lopez on Sailor Moon

 

[julayla]

So I guess we'll never see the DIC Dub remastered or have it ever brought up by companies ever again at this point now that I've seen the interview.

 

[Masquerade]

"It's not going to be censored"
Except if we find dialogues and situations to be fatphobic, homophobic or even bad parenting

 

[redneonglow]

"It's not going to be censored"
Except if we find dialogues and situations to be fatphobic, homophobic or even bad parenting

I still have to watch Stars. I've heard some people here mention that there was still censorship of politically incorrect content, but does that only apply to the dub or are Viz's subs censored as well?

 

[sapphire91]

I still have to watch Stars. I've heard some people here mention that there was still censorship of politically incorrect content, but does that only apply to the dub or are Viz's subs censored as well?

The subs are not tuned down.

 

[Mosaic]

I can't speak for the DIC dub, but I don't see why they can't ever release the CWI/Pioneer dub as an additional audio option for further releases. It was a dub produced by Toei, and two no longer existing companies. It's also unedited. They only they'd have to do was handle the next episode previews, which would be easy - leave it mute, in Japanese, or just with the BGM.

 

[sapphire91]

I can't speak for the DIC dub, but I don't see why they can't ever release the CWI/Pioneer dub as an additional audio option for further releases. It was a dub produced by Toei, and two no longer existing companies. It's also unedited. They only they'd have to do was handle the next episode previews, which would be easy - leave it mute, in Japanese, or just with the BGM.

Maybe they just have no masters for it. Toei allegedly lost the film materials for the series, so it is completely understandable if they have lost the audio materials for the dub.

 

[NJ_]

Maybe they just have no masters for it. Toei allegedly lost the film materials for the series, so it is completely understandable if they have lost the audio materials for the dub.

They re-released Slam Dunk on DVD a few years back through a more incompetent company (Cinedigm) with their incomplete dub from 2004, also done at Optimum, so that's definitely not the reason.