You’ve felt that specific sting. You’re scrolling through a streaming service or a gaming storefront, and you see it—that one series you loved fifteen years ago. It’s just sitting there. No sequels, no remasters, no "anniversary collections." Nothing. You go to social media, find a community of ten thousand other people screaming for a revival, and yet, the corporate owner says absolutely nothing. People often vent their frustrations by saying, "If they aren't using it, they should sell it," but the reality inside boardrooms is usually a cold, calculated stance of it's my IP to sit on and do nothing with.
Intellectual property isn't a "use it or lose it" system like a trademark in some specific jurisdictions. It’s an asset. Sometimes, an asset is more valuable to a company when it’s dead than when it’s alive.
The Logic of the Vault
Why do they do it? Honestly, it usually comes down to risk mitigation and "brand dilution" fears. Think about a company like Nintendo or Disney. If Disney has a secondary character or an old film like The Black Hole, they aren't necessarily looking to reboot it every five minutes. They own it. By holding onto it, they ensure nobody else can make a "spiritual successor" that actually uses the brand name.
It's a defensive play.
If Sony owns the rights to a specific game franchise but has no plans for a sequel, letting it sit in a vault prevents a competitor from buying it and turning it into a "killer app" for a rival console. It’s like owning a piece of land in a developing city. You might not have the money to build a skyscraper on it today, but you’re sure as heck not going to sell it to the guy across the street who wants to build one and block your view.
Why "Selling It" Is Rarer Than You Think
Fans always suggest that struggling companies should "sell the IP" to raise cash. We saw this recently with Embracer Group. After an aggressive acquisition spree, they hit a financial wall and started divesting. They sold Saber Interactive and Gearbox. But notice what they kept. They kept a massive hoard of "backlog" IPs.
Selling an IP is a permanent divorce.
Once you sell the rights to Legacy of Kain or Splinter Cell or some obscure 80s cult classic movie, you lose all future upside. If a 1990s aesthetic suddenly becomes the biggest trend in 2027, and you sold your 90s IPs for a quick buck in 2024, you look like a fool to your shareholders. Executives would rather be criticized for "doing nothing" than for "selling the next big thing" for pennies.
There's also the nightmare of "Chain of Title." For many older properties, the legal paperwork is a disaster. If a company wants to sell an old IP, they have to prove they own every single piece of it—the music, the character designs, the specific code. Sometimes, it’s literally cheaper to let the IP rot in a basement than to pay a team of lawyers $500 an hour to clean up the legal title for a sale that might only net a few million dollars.
The "Tax Write-Off" Era
We have to talk about the Warner Bros. Discovery situation. It changed the conversation around it's my IP to sit on and do nothing with into something much darker for fans. Under David Zaslav, movies that were already finished—like Batgirl or Coyote vs. Acme—were shelved.
They weren't just "not being used." They were being deleted for tax purposes.
When a company "sunsets" a project or an IP in this way, they take a loss to offset their taxable income. The catch? They can never, ever release that specific version of the IP for profit. It becomes a ghost. It exists in a vault, fully formed, but the public will never see it because the corporation decided the tax hedge was worth more than the artistic output. This is the ultimate expression of ownership: the right to destroy.
Intellectual Property vs. Trademarks
There is a huge technical distinction here that people miss.
- Copyright (the IP itself) lasts a very long time—basically 95 years from publication for corporate works in the US. You don't have to use it to keep it.
- Trademarks (the name and logo) can actually be lost if they aren't used in commerce.
This is why you see companies release "trash" products. Have you ever wondered why a random, low-budget mobile game or a weirdly specific piece of merchandise comes out for a dead franchise? It’s often a "maintenance" move. They are putting the logo on a t-shirt or a digital storefront just to prove to the trademark office that the brand is still "active." They aren't doing it because they love the fans; they're doing it to reset the clock.
The Cost of Staying Quiet
Actually making things is expensive.
Marketing a "AA" video game now costs $30 million. A mid-budget movie? $50 million. If a company owns an IP but doesn't have the "greenlight" budget, the safest financial move is silence. Doing nothing costs $0. Launching a reboot that flops can cost a CEO their job.
Look at the Star Trek franchise before the 2009 reboot. It sat largely dormant after Enterprise was canceled. Paramount didn't sell it. They didn't "do nothing" forever. They waited for the market to get hungry again. IP is a "wait and see" game.
Actionable Steps for Navigating "Dead" IPs
If you are a creator or a fan frustrated by a hoarded IP, you have to understand the leverage points. Companies rarely move because of "petitions." They move because of "proven market fit."
1. Support Spiritual Successors
When the owners of Castlevania did nothing, fans flocked to Bloodstained. When Banjo-Kazooie stayed in the vault, Yooka-Laylee happened. Showing that a market exists for a style of game often forces the IP holder to wake up. They see the money someone else is making and realize they are leaving cash on the table.
2. Focus on Trademarks, Not Copyrights
If you are a business person looking to acquire an IP, look for "zombie trademarks." If a company has failed to use a mark in commerce for over three to five years, it might be vulnerable to a cancellation proceeding. This is rare and expensive, but it's how some smaller companies have clawed back names from the giants.
3. The Licensing Route
Instead of asking a company to sell an IP, smaller studios often have more luck asking to license it. Nightdive Studios has made a whole business out of this. They don't necessarily own all the IPs they remaster; they go to the "hoarders" and say, "Keep your ownership, just let us do the work and we'll split the profit." It reduces the risk for the big corporation to nearly zero.
4. Public Domain Awareness
Keep an eye on the calendar. We are entering the era where famous 1920s and 1930s characters are hitting the public domain. Steamboat Willie (Mickey Mouse) is out. Winnie the Pooh is out. The "it's mine to do nothing with" power has an expiration date, even if it's a century away.
Corporate ownership is rarely about passion. It’s about the balance sheet. An IP sitting on a shelf isn't "wasted" in the eyes of a CFO—it’s a "stored value" asset, like a gold bar in a safe. It doesn't have to do anything to be worth something. Understanding that cold reality is the first step in realizing why your favorite childhood series is currently gathering digital dust.