Who owns Betty Boop?

[Frizfrelengfan]

In a recent post Jerry Beck mentioned that Betty Boop was owned by Fleischer Studios, now run by Max's son, which licenses the character. But a visit to www.kingfeatures.com (http://www.kingfeatures.com) indicates that KFS owns the character. What's the situation? Does Republic Pictures still own the films? Does Republic Pictures still even exist? Wasn't Paramount Pictures supposed to re-acquire the rights? And if Betty is so popular on T-shirts and the like, why hasn't the Definitive Collection been released on DVD? Perhaps there are disputes regarding who owns the character and/or the films?

On a related note, I was on vacation on Captiva Island, Florida, last month, and ate in a funky, fun restaurant called the Bubble Room, which has a door-sized painting of Betty Boop inside. It reminded me of everyone on the TTTP even though I had no access to the internet while on vacation.

[Argus Sventon]

Paramount/Viacom, thought having reacquired the U.M.&M./NTA library, does not have video rights to the Republic Pictures/NTA/U.M.&M library. The video rights are controlled by Artisan for a year or two.

[JDWeil]

Betty Boop is owned by the Fleischer Studios but KIng Features is the licensing agent for Fleischer.

[Frizfrelengfan]

Paramount/Viacom, thought having reacquired the U.M.&M./NTA library, does not have video rights to the Republic Pictures/NTA/U.M.&M library. The video rights are controlled by Artisan for a year or two.So I guess it's Artisan's fault that we're not seeing Betty on DVD.

Why a company would buy video rights, when they have no intention of putting out video, beats the hell out of me.

[Patrick McCart]

You don't want Betty Boop DVD's from Artisan. They'll end up using those transfers with too much digital noise removal, most likely (they do this nearly all of the Republic DVD's).

In Paramount's hands, they'll likely use brand new transfers from the UCLA restorations.