Harmony Gold, the U.S. rights-holder for the Macross property, is sending letters to retailers and importers of Japanese Macross products, telling them to cease and desist, according to Anime News Network.  The retailers involved, as far as we know, have been mail order/Internet retailers, not brick and mortar stores.  The letter asked not only that the retailers cease and desist sales and marketing of the products, but also that they identify the source of the products, turn over inventory to Harmony Gold, and agree to avoid parallel imports in the future.

 

Harmony Gold has been active on the rights front recently, not only in protecting Macross rights but by licensing its related Robotech property (see 'HP Licenses Robotech for Videogames').  This could be an assertion of rights in the wake of the recent Macross rights litigation in Japan (which seems to have affected only Japanese rights, see 'Macross Rights Litigation in Japan'), or simply the recognition that the property is now hot enough again to make it important both to gray market importers and to the rights-holder trying to control them.