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Originally Posted by Jamie
It seems like there is something weird about the Star Trek rights, but nobody knows what the terms are. There's no third party though, Viacom owns Paramount, so it's just CBS vs Paramount.
There was a thing that came out that the Enterprise in Discovery had to be at least 25% different from the original for legal reasons, so maybe if it's too similar you have to get approval from the other company? It's weird, because CBS owns the trademarks and controls merchandising, so the rights aren't really split down the middle at all. Maybe the 25% thing was just something they said to get the nerds off their back. After all, they didn't have to change the Vulcan makeup.
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So I think I understand this now. Old Viacom owned Star Trek. Old Viacom merged with Old CBS to form New CBS. Eventually New CBS spun New Viacom off from itself, but it'a a new company and doesn't include all the pieces Old Viacom brought into the merger. New Viacom gets Paramount, but ownership of Star Trek stays with CBS. Paramount does get the right to continue distributing the ten movies.
Eventually Paramount wants to make new Star Trek movies so they license it from CBS. For some stupid reason this licensing deal includes a provision that what they make has to be 25% different. Then CBS decides they want to have Star Trek TV shows. But instead of producing it themselves, they go back to Paramount to do it for them, under the terms of the original licensing deal. So even though it's for CBS, who own Star Trek, it's produced by Paramount, who have to abide by this reeruned 25% deal.