Hmm, that's cool.
What's an IP? Intellectual property?
Yup, IP = Intellectual Property.
It was explained to me like this; I design a character for myself, I license it to you to make lunch boxes. I still retain all reproduction rights, so I could also make lunch boxes with said character. I choose not to because I feel each of us making lunch boxes could pollute my IP, by confusing the potential customers. Also, since I'm receiving royalties from you without having to put in any of my money, your lunch boxes are making me free income.
Also, doing some snooping, most people operate on the "As long as Fox/Sony keeps making movies, they get to keep their access to Marvel IPs". That's mostly incorrect. In most cases, the licensing agreements made in the 90's have either expired or been renegotiated. A lot times the licensing is "You have the right to make a movie based on my IP for x years" or "You have the right to make X number of movies"; a great example of the former is X-Men, Fox had a 3 picture deal. They're on movie 5, because Fox has made Marvel pretty decent money, and hasn't polluted the IP, but if Marvel decided "Hey, let's make an X-Men movie", they have the right to go to Fox and say "Thank you for your movies, but you're done now".
IP rights can get muddy, and I'm sure I misremembered some stuff, but this is the explanations given to me by an "expert" in his field.
