Copyright Issues
SPECTRE and its characters have been at the centre of long-standing litigation starting in 1961 between Kevin McClory and Ian Fleming over the film rights to Thunderball and the ownership of the organisation and its characters. In 1963, Fleming settled out of court with McClory, which awarded McClory the film rights to Thunderball, although literary rights would stay with Fleming and thus allow continuation author John Gardner to use SPECTRE in a number of his novels.
In 1963, Eon Productions producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman made agreement with McClory to adapt the novel into the fourth James Bond film, stipulating also that McClory would not be allowed to make further adaptations of Thunderball for at least ten years since the release. Although SPECTRE and Blofeld are used in a number of films before and after Thunderball, the issue over the copyright of Thunderball did prevent SPECTRE and Blofeld from becoming the main villains in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me. In 1983, McClory released a film based on his Bond rights entitled Never Say Never Again.
In 1998 MGM/UA took legal action against Sony and McClory in the United States to prevent Warhead 2000 AD from going into production. MGM/UA abandoned the claim after settling with Sony. McClory's Bond rights, including his rights in SPECTRE were unaffected.
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