intellectual-property is-x-legal
Can companies that buy the broadcasting rights, also buy merchandising rights in North America?
<p>Can companies that buy the broadcasting rights, also buy merchandising rights in North America? I have been wondering if that's considered to be illegal practice, because that gives a company too much power.</p>
<p>For instance, when Netflix bought the broadcasting rights for Squid Game, did they also buy the merchandising rights from the writer? If so, what does the law state in order to make it fair to the original owner of the IP? Does Netflix have to do something to make it fair for the original IP owners like give them a cut of the merchandising profits?</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag">united-states</a></p>
<p>There is no general rule against one company or person buying both broadcasting rights and merchandising rights to a particular piece of content in the US.</p>
<p>There are anti-monopoly/anti-trust laws, but those generally only apply if a particular entity holds a monopoly or a commanding market position in a whole market sector. If one firm held the rights to 80% of all online games, for example, an anti-trust action might well be warranted. But a single game or property is not generally considered to be a market sector for anti-trust purposes. Exactly what the proper market sector is in such cases is often a complex, technical, and highly disputed issue.</p>
<p>The &quot;original owner of the IP&quot; can decide who s/he wishes to sell that IP to -- nothing requires, or forbids, that different sets of rights be sold to the same buyer. The original owner will attempt to get the best deal available. Sometimes that is a very lucrative deal, and sometimes it is far from that. As long as unlawful methods are not used to induce a sale, whatever bargain the parties make is  generally acceptable to the law.</p>
<p>I do not know who did, or did not, buy any of the rights to Squid Game, and that info might not be publicly available. But there is no law that I know of against the same party having both broadcast and marketing rights to it, and perhaps other rights as well.</p>

<p>Cross media adaptations don't just use existing IP under a license, they also generate new IP. Those new elements of IP are owned by the one making the adaptation, provided that there are differences.</p>
<p>Merchandise for a film usually uses the film is its source to adapt, and would before others, need the filmmaker to license using their work. Often, visual designs are not part of books, and so the contribution of the book's author is less in the visual design and more in the story. In fact, there are books where the adaptation has literally <em>nothing</em> in common with the film but names! (I'm looking at you, Starship Troopers.)</p>
<p>Because of this behavior that there might not even be a right in the visual design owned by the book IP used in the merchandise, it is common practice to include any and all possible <em>merchandise to the adaptation</em> in a licensing deal for adapting.</p>
