In the cases of Disney, Warners, big entertainment congloms, they retain the copyright all over the world. In other cases, like production companies, they can only hope to retain their original country of origination for authoroship, which is why we have this mess with many old properties, because they were independent studios, or had contracts with companies that did not have international reach.
In the case of Marvel, they were an independent without international distribution. So often they would share copyright or simply sell off rights to international distributors to get the product out there.
As for Boop and Avery: in Avery's case, if WB put out a set here and it was not restored, we would all be up in arms and no-one would buy the box. And the problem is that there isn't really the demand to put that money into restoration...so that lies dormant. But in France, where Avery is such an artistic hero, WB knows they can put out the unrestored LaserDisc masters and they'll still lap them up. Nothing to do with copyright, just down to supply and demand.
Betty's a similar case: she's everywhere in France, and here in the UK too, which is why companies take more of a shot at putting out content. In her case, copyright on what Paramount used to own and what their Famous Lasky Players owned overseas <I>could</I> have an effect, plus the fact that Republic <I>never</I> had a distribution outside the US, is more than likely the reason. But a lot of it will be down to the fact that they can put out ropey old transfers and still sell a bunch in Europe, while if they did the same in the US the sets would sell even less than they would even if they restored them.
Again, there's no "gentlemen's agreements" either: yes, it is all scheduled with what they <I>think</I> is a pinpoint accuracy, but again it's mostly down to money, what's coming out that it can be tied to, and who is paying for what fraction of a restoration, or whatever.
You're right on the music clearances. Paramount/Lasky Music Company owned the publishing rights on the Fleischer songs, but only the publishing rights. That means anyone can put out a recording of the song (as in a DVD of the original recording) as long as they pay Paramount <I>if</I> they come a calling. But as you say Paramount have no interest - mainly because they don't control the titles any more and there's no money in them. Those niche companies see a gap and try to fill it, but the low numbers sold prove that there just isn't the demand for someone to do a full restoration job. Sure, we'd all buy an "official" release, but there's only a few of us.
On wanting better prints: again, it's not Paramount we need to convince: they don't control these films anymore. And goodness knows where Republic are with being tied up with things. But whoever we need to petition, their reply will be: it will cost $200,000 to restore this or that amount of cartoons, and another $50,000 to market and sell the discs, but our market research tell us we will ship only 15-25,000 units, so profit is minimal...what's the point? And so we go around and around in circles.
On the Viacom Store...I wonder if it also didn't do so well as the Disney and WB stores because, let's face it, they don't have Disney or WB's knack of marketing or a fashionable and instantly recognizable stable of characters. And again, prints of cels, posters and T-shirts are much easier to generate than finding a decent film print, transferring it even basically, and creating a home video release. But they did do them, since I have four authentic Terrytoons VHS compilations here (three Mighty Mouses, one potpourri of random cartoons).
Unfortunately, I can't see Bakshi's MM leading to the Terrytoons (and Filmation shows too!) we really want. It may shift a few units to those that don't know what they're getting (and will obviously shift a few to those that DO know what they're getting!) but not enough for anyone to go "hey, wow, there's money in Mighty Mouse! Let's put out the old ones!", especially again given even minor remastering costs if not restorations.
The big hope was the Mighty Mouse CG feature announced a couple of years ago, when some of the restoration costs could be met by part of the movie's film marketing budget (yes, that happens)...but I have no idea what's going on with that.
