>>5729018>A license and a royalty are differentSorta, but one is part to the whole.
With a license, royalties are written into it as part of the deal. Toy Biz, in 1993, bypassed that by offering Marvel to borrow in their name (equity). So basically, Toy Biz gave Marvel a ton of money for the license, despite it being "free" for them.
>I run a chain restaurant We're not talking about dinky restaurants.
Marvel was and still is a big company and they were publically traded. These companies HAVE to shop around, in order to make their investors happy and to properly evaluate their properties. It's sorta like why Nintendo went into negotiations with MS to sell their company.
It's specifically why licenses usually run 2-10 years or however long they last. It's always to shop around to see if anyone will give them more money, despite the relationship being fantastic and reining in billions of dollars. This makes it unlikely anyone else can bid more, like with Hasbro and Marvel/Lucas/Disney, but Marvel/LucasFilm/Disney still has to entertain other offers. This is a common place thing for big companies and Toy Biz, without a doubt, had to place their bid with Marvel anyway.
And where does that money go? Back to Marvel, which is why no one could really ever outbid Toy Biz.
If you or that other guy even bothered to have read the links posted, youd see that even internally money was being paid for the license
>Q4 Licensing Division results benefited from the higher level of licensing agreements completed earlier in the year, which contributed royalties above minimum guarantees, and an increased number of license agreements in new categories of business. License revenues in excess of minimum guarantees (or "overages") were approximately $45 million for the full year.>Marvel's licensee, Toy Biz Worldwide Ltd., with Marvel recording related royalty income within its licensing segmentThis shows that money is moving from Toy Biz's division to another Marvel division.
