Profits.

[Thanos007]

I heard or read somewhere that Roddenberry and/or the estate owns half of Star Trek. I find that hard to believe. Also anyone know how long NBC got a cut or were they out when they stopped reruns on the network? Any idea how much the estate gets now?

 

[Finn]

No. NBC never had any ownership, I believe. They only had the license to air TOS back in the day....

And I don't believe there is a Roddenberry estate, at least not the way George Lucas had a company...

CBS owns the TV side while Paramount (what's left of the old Desilu productions company is part of Paramount now) and Viacom owns the movies and DVDs side...

 

[Thanos007]

My understanding was Paramount owns nothing except the back catalog and all new productions, 2009 forward, had to be licensed from CBS.

 

[Finn]

Paramount/Viacom owns the films, while CBS owns the tv. It has been that way for a while. Paramount has nothing to do with Discovery

 

[F. King Daniel]

If anyone doubts the ownership of Trek, the Axanar lawsuit spelled it out in court documents. CBS has the rights to the TV series' and streaming stuff, and Paramount Pictures the cinematic side of things (not that they're doing anything with them)

 

[Thanos007]

Again it's my understanding that Paramount only has the rights to produce movies based on Star Trek and the CBS wholly owns the IP and that Paramount has to pass everything through CBS for their (CBS) OK.

 

[Jedman67]

Again it's my understanding that Paramount only has the rights to produce movies based on Star Trek and the CBS wholly owns the IP and that Paramount has to pass everything through CBS for their (CBS) OK.

It's entirely possible, although unlikely, that Gene Roddenberry was able to get a personal royalty deal.
Paramount holds a license to make the films, that they acquired as part of the CBS Viacom split, but they don't own the IP.