A media franchise is the licensing of intellectual property of an original work of media (usually a work of fiction), such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game, to others. This licensing may involve trademarked characters and settings. Generally, a media franchise means that a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with licensing to others for merchandising and endorsements.
Recently, some parts of the film industry have erroneously begun to use the word "franchise" as a synonym for a film series. However, unless the owners of the copyright to a film series also have trademarked the names of characters and other elements in the films, and are licensing the use of these to others, a film series is not a franchise, as the act of such licensing is what constitutes franchising.
Read more about Media Franchise: Metaseries
Famous quotes containing the words media and/or franchise:
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)
“To-day women constitute the only class of sane people excluded from the franchise ...”
—Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842–1906)