For over two decades Tsuburaya's hands have been tied as they tried to market Ultraman around the world. Taiwanese company Chaiyo (who coproduced a Thai Ultraman movie with Tsuburaya in the mid '70s) produced a document in the mid '90s claiming that they had international rights to Ultraman. Several years later Chaiyo transferred these rights to a company called UGM. After much wrangling, it shook out that Chaiyo/UGM had distribution rights to the first six Ultra TV shows outside Japan, and they did licensing and merchandise and even attempted to make various new Ultra shows and movies, few of which actually materialized - though Ultraman's recent appearance in this year's installment of a Chinese CGI film franchise was licensed by UGM, much to Tsuburaya's chagrin.
Basically, Tsuburaya has been fighting this for a long time, and it's always impeded their desire to bring Ultraman worldwide as well as denied them the revenue of that lost licensing. The DVDs of Ultraman, Ultra Q, and Ultraseven that have been available in the US, for instance, are all licensed by UGM in pretty crap quality - Tsuburaya has the original elements, while UGM's appears to be rips stolen from home video releases. The English dub for the original Ultraman that UGM has is clearly sourced from US fan bootlegs, recorded off air from when the show was still in syndication in the '80s!
Tsuburaya has had to tread lightly, sometimes not knowing where they stand. In recent years whenever a foreign company asks for an appearance by the original Ultraman for a commercial or music video Tsuburaya has provided the very similar but
legally distinct character of Ultraman Neos. There's been walking on eggshells, never quite sure if something will be contested.
Anyway, the reason behind all this description - BAM! :
http://www.scifijapan.com/articles/2...ights-lawsuit/
Los Angeles jury has found that initial document giving the Ultraman rights to Chaiyo to be "not authentic!" This is what Tsuburaya Productios has said for years, that the document is a forgery (and a poor one at that). Hopefully this is the end of this foolishness.