Forum - View topicTokyopop Plans Manga Publishing Relaunch, More Projects
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Buzz201
Posts: 266 |
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Depending on the type of company TokyoPop was registered as, he probably didn't owe the debt, the company did, and I think there are some forms of insolvency where as much as possible is paid to creditors and the rest just gets wiped. It wouldn't surprise me, if the old company has declared bankruptcy if this was legally an entirely new company, set up to look the same and act the same. This is obviously a very dodgy way of doing things though. |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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If it's a C-corporation, they can't go after him for anything(I believe S-corporations have fewer protections). The main difference between chapter 7 and chapter 11 bankruptcy is that the latter is a reorganization while the former is outright liquidation; I'm not aware of either being declared for TokyoPop, so it's likely any debts were settled less dramatically.
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Or, if he's as scummy as some people are saying he is, he may still owe a good deal of money, if not even more than he used to. If he treats his customers, employees, and signed-on artists like dirt, who's to say he doesn't treat his licensors and investors the same way?
If it's because Levy was angry that Tokyopop consumers didn't follow him to reality TV and movies, it sounds like he's got a bad case of narcissism. It sounds like he thought he had a cult of personality around him that was buying his manga not because they were fans of manga, but because he was involved in it, and that whatever he moved to, he expected them to move there with him.
I tried collecting the manga for Cyborg 009, but it was quite unpopular and I couldn't even come close to getting all of Tokyopop's print run, let alone the whole series.
A Hollywood producer once told me that this rights-sitting is par for the course with major Hollywood movie studios. The reason companies like these sit on the rights and won't let them go at any price is to prevent their competitors from getting them. Someone buying the rights from Tokyopop means they intend to publish it somewhere, and publishing it anywhere other than Tokyopop means competition. They'll only relinquish these rights if it's costing them a significant amount of money to hold on to them. At least in the case of Rising Stars and Manga Pilot, they don't have to pay any royalties, so there's no harm to them on sitting on them, especially if any of these authors, even they wrote total dreck for Tokyopop, turns out to be a future sensation. Then Tokyopop can re-publish these comics with "From the creator of (X)!" without having to pay the author or even ask permission. |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3447 Location: Finland |
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Well, if we as consumers and fans of manga don't give them any money as long as they sit on those rights you could say it'll cost them. Unfortunately, that might be too much of a long shot to hope for, even in the niche that manga sits in... |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Yeah, I get the impression Stu Levy is not too interested in the manga business--if there was a major boycott of Tokyopop's manga, he'd most likely just turn to something he's more interested in.
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