Mainframe Entertainment has established a global sales division and has named Joy Tashjian as vice president, worldwide sales and marketing. Tashjian will oversee the new division as the company expands its presence in the U.S. and strengthens its position in the global marketplace. She will also oversee the international distribution and will supervise the domestic sales for Mainframe's properties including TONY HAWK'S FEASTERS, DOT'S BOTS, BETTY BOOP, WUBBIES and SCARY GODMOTHER among others.

Yet another twist in the bitter battle for Winnie the Pooh royalties surfaced this week when Disney reportedly made an announcement that the granddaughter of Pooh creator A.A. Milne and the granddaughter of Pooh illustrator E. H. Shepard have decided to reclaim all rights to the characters. According to an AP report, Disney cited a clause in the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act that will allow the heirs to reclaim the international rights granted to Disney, as well as rights granted to Stephen Slesinger Inc. and grant all those rights exclusively to Disney starting in 2004.

Creek & River America (C&R), a talent management company representing freelance creative artists and production and design firms, has opened its first North American office in New York. Creek & River America represents U.S.-based talent on behalf of its parent company, Tokyo-based Creek & River Co., Ltd., which currently represents more than 20,000 creative artists including directors, producers, cinematographers, animators, designers, illustrators, copywriters and photographers.

Corus Entertainment's Nelvana put the wrap on MIPCOM 2002 with a number of new sales and renewals for its kids' brands and programs. BEYBLADE continued to be a popular property for the company and was snapped up by the UK's terrestrial broadcaster Five TV (formerly Channel 5), which licensed 51 episodes of the series for debut in November 2002. BEYBLADE currently airs in the UK on Cartoon Network UK. Nelvana also completed video and DVD deals for BEYBLADE and MEDABOTS in the UK with Contender Entertainment Group, which set the titles for a release date of December 2, 2002.

Pixar Animation Studios announced the largest quarterly profit in the company's history with the financial results for its fiscal third quarter of 2002 and for the nine months ended September 28, 2002. For the quarter, Pixar earned $46.9 million or $0.87 per diluted share, compared to earnings of $6.2 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, achieved in the year-ago quarter. Revenues for the quarter were $102.5 million, as compared to $11.3 million in the year-ago quarter. These results were largely driven by better than expected sales of the MONSTERS, INC.

Latin American distribution specialist Salsa Entertainment returned from MIPCOM 2002 with a slate of program sales for the Latin American region. The Salsa Entertainment catalogue features award-winning products from well known international producers and distributors including TV-Loonland, Scholastic Entertainment, Decode Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company.

In announcing its fourth quarter and August 31, 2002 year-end results, Corus Entertainment Inc. revealed it has taken a CAD$200 million (approx. US$128 million) write-down of its investment in Nelvana. Nelvana is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corus Entertainment. The company took the write-down because of the slowdown in the production and distribution industry over the past year. The write-down includes $40 million (US$25.6 million) from Nelvana's library and $160 million (US$102 million) for goodwill and other intangibles.

The long-running litigation over WINNIE THE POOH royalties took a startling turn as accountants hired by the court to audit Disney's records were officially fired on October 25, 2002. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ernest M. Hiroshige had determined that the accountants were biased in favor of Disney and their auditing methods unreliable. He has ordered that a new independent accounting firm be hired.

Cartoon Network has added Hungarian and Romanian to its language services making it available in no less than eleven languages in Europe. Starting out as a pan-European channel in 1993, Cartoon Network now has seven dedicated regional channels in Europe, the Middle East and Africa where it can be enjoyed in English, Danish, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish.

peppermint, the worldwide distribution company that has recently undergone a management buy out from Germany's Helkon Media AG, has signed a deal with Spanish production and distribution company BRB to distribute over 230 hours of programming to all Asian territories. peppermint, who will also handle Australia and New Zealand for BRB, will have exclusive distribution rights for 20 different series, each consisting of 26 x 26-minute episodes, plus 14 related features each with a running time of 75 minutes.

IMAX Corporation has announced that it will be bringing large format theaters to South America. Four IMAX theatres will open, to be located in Chile and Ecuador. "IMAX's entry into South America with these four new theatres is an exciting moment for our company and is really only the beginning for us in a market that we believe can support many more IMAX theatres in many countries," said Richard L. Gelfond and Bradley J. Wechsler, co-CEOs and co-chairmen, IMAX Corporation.

Cinar's library of over 2,200 half-hours of family programming will soon be traveling to new territories thanks to a distribution agreement with VGI Entertainment Ltd., a UK-based distribution company. Under the terms of the deal, VGI will distribute Cinar titles such as CAILLOU, ARTHUR, MONA THE VAMPIRE and THE BUSY WORLD OF RICHARD SCARY in sub-Saharan Africa. "We are very pleased to add VGI's expertise and knowledge to the Cinar team," said Louis Fournier, head of distribution for Cinar. "We are confident that our fascinating cast of characters will find a welcome home in Africa.

ELECTRONIC MEDIA ONLINE is reporting that U.S. broadcast network UPN will be dropping Disney's two-hour animated block beginning in 2003, opting instead to give the time slots back to stations. The kids' block airs weekdays on various UPN affiliates and features such series as DIGIMON and DISNEY'S RECESS. Disney has been programming the block since 1999. The two-hour slot will likely be handed back to affiliates for syndicated or local programming, effectively removing at least one network from the broadcast 'toon wars.

4Kids Entertainment has signed an agreement with DreamWorks Records to release an album based upon the music in the YU-GI-OH! animated television series. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the album, titled YU-GI-OH!: MUSIC TO DUEL BY, will be available at retail on October 29, 2002. The album will contain the YU-GI-OH! theme songs as well as orchestral passages and other songs from the television series. Also on the album will be some new music scheduled to be included in future episodes of YU-GI-OH!

Buena Vista International Television has licensed its 'Classic Treasures' package to a number of key broadcasters across the Asia Pacific region for telecast on terrestrial television for the first time. The collection, which includes A BUG'S LIFE, MULAN, POCAHONTAS, TOY STORY and TOY STORY 2 will air on the Seven Network in Australia, TVNZ in New Zealand and on the Media Corp-owned Channel 5 in Singapore.

Nickelodeon has agreed to license several of its popular cartoon properties to niche-market peripheral company KidzMouse. Several new KidzMouse computer mouse designs, sold under the "Nickelodeon by KidzMouse" name and based on Nick cartoon series, will debut in time for the holiday 2002 retail season. KidzMouse, is a "Kid-Friendly Computer Mouse" about half the size of a regular computer mouse with a squeezable "head" that replaces normal mouse buttons. The product is designed to make computers accessible and enjoyable for young computer users.

London-based computer animation studio Slave Studios Ltd. has opened Bravo Studios, a sister company based in Bucharest. Bravo Studios is headed by Cinesite veteran Bill Scanlon, and opened in summer 2002 with 30 animators. The studio expects to increase its staff to over 50 animators by 2003. Slave and Bravo are currently at work on numerous projects for television and film. Among other projects, the studio recently completed SPHERIKS, a 26 x half-hour TV series in partnership with Passion Pictures for FIFA, featuring the official mascots for the WORLD CUP 2002.

Children’s entertainment outfit HIT Entertainment reported record financial results for its fiscal year, which ended July 31, 2002.

Egmont Imagination has signed an exclusive worldwide direct marketing agreement with Reader’s Digest to distribute THE FAIRYTALER on video and DVD. Launched this week at MIPCOM Jr., THE FAIRYTALER is a 26 x half-hour animated series that newly illustrates Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tales, which include THE UGLY DUCKLING, THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES, THUMBELINA and THE LITTLE MERMAID. The series is a co-production between Magma Film, Egmont Imagination and fellow Danish companies A. Film and Danmarks Radio, as well as Germany's Super RTL.

The U.S. Supreme Court now has the task of determining the legality of the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), a 1998 law that extended millions of existing copyrights by an additional 20 years. On Wednesday, October 9, 2002, the court will hear arguments in the matter of Eldred v. Ashcroft, which seeks to overturn the act on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. At the time of its enactment, the CTEA became known as the "Mickey Mouse Extension Act" because of aggressive lobbying by Disney.