Channel Hop

• Chainsaw Man: Part 1, covering the first 97 chapters, was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump between 2018 and 2020 before going on hiatus. Upon its return in 2022, Part 2 began serialization in the online sister magazine Shonen Jump+, through which Tatsuki Fujimoto had published most of his other works.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: For over sixteen years, the series was published in Weekly Shonen Jump for Parts 1-6. From Steel Ball Run onwards, the series was moved to the monthly seinen magazine Ultra Jump, which would become the new home for JJBA.
• In Canada Pokémon the Series originally aired on YTV starting in 1998 and stayed there until 2014. When Corus Entertainment got full ownership of Teletoon that year, the show moved to that channel where it stayed since. For the French version of the show, it originally aired on the French Teletoon, but Pokemon: Master Quest aired on another channel, TQS, instead. After they dropped the show, it wouldn't get a French dub again until X and Y, where it returned to the French Teletoon and has stayed there since. It should be noted that YTV still occasionally airs the show for special events.

• Brazilian TV legend Xuxa switched from Rede Globo to Rede Record in 2015. The Channel Hop didn't stop Globo-owned Som Livre from releasing the next Xuxa Só Para Baixinhos album, however.
• A variant of sorts occurred with the international Sesame Street Muppet character Sivan. She started off in 2009 with the Israeli co-production Rechov Sumsum, but in 2014 the character was transferred to the Brazilian co-production Vila Sésamo.
• The British puppet character Roland Rat began on ITV's TV-am in 1983, moved to The BBC with much fanfare in 1985, and his last regular television appearance was the Channel Five series LA Rat in 1997.

• Many companies were bought by DC Comics:
  • Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Judomaster, Peacemaker and The Question all started off at Charlton Comics, but were bought out by DC Comics and brought into the official DCU during Crisis on Infinite Earths. Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt was also briefly published by DC but is currently published by Dynamite Entertainment (as the rights to the character returned to the estate of his deceased creator).
  • Shazam! (formerly Captain Marvel), Black Adam, and the Marvel Family were originally owned by Fawcett Comics but ended up being bought out by DC after a massive lawsuit. They (as well as Fawcett's other heroes) are currently part of the DCU.
  • Plastic Man and Blackhawk were originally owned by Quality Comics, but like the above examples, were bought out by DC and integrated into their universe. A number of other Quality properties like the Ray, Phantom Lady, Black Condor, and Uncle Sam were later published together as the Freedom Fighters.
  • The Milestone Comics heroes (the most famous among them being Static) were originally part of a creator-owned imprint published by DC, but separate from the DC Universe. Later, they were licensed by DC, becoming part of the DCU proper. Later still, they were established as having their own universe in the DC multiverse, again under their own imprint.
  • The characters of WildStorm (publisher of The Authority, Stormwatch, Gen¹³, and Wild CATS Wild Storm) started off as a sub-studio at Image, before being bought by DC Comics. The characters existed on their own until the events of Flashpoint and the New 52, where they were brought over into the rebooted DC canon.
• Archie Comics had a line of superheroes in the Golden Age, collectively known as the Red Circle. DC briefly licensed the rights from Archie and integrated them into the DCU, but poor sales resulted in the rights going back to Archie. Archie now publishes the Red Circle heroes once again, treating their DC adventures as Canon Discontinuity in the process.
• Miracleman (formerly Marvelman) is a famously complicated example. He started off in the '50s at L. Miller & Son before being revived by Quality Communications in the '80s. He was then licensed out to Eclipse Comics, before that publisher folded (as had Quality), and floated around in limbo for years. Todd McFarlane tried to bring the character into the Image Comics universe, but legal issues prevented this from happening. Marvel Comics supposedly has the rights as of now, and have reprinted some of Miracleman's original 50's stories, but it is unclear whether or not they have rights to the Quality and Eclipse material (which featured legendary work from Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman).
  • Marvel has started reprinting the Alan Moore stories, although the writer is now credited to "The Original Writer".
• Amazing-Man was originally published by Centaur, but after lapsing into the Public Domain, he has appeared in stories published by Malibu and Dynamite Entertainment (such as Project Superpowers). He's also appeared in the Marvel Universe (in Immortal Iron Fist, Secret Avengers, and The Defenders, but is called the Prince of Orphans due to copyright reasons.
• Rob Liefeld's Youngblood (Image Comics) originated at Image Comics, but Liefeld eventually left the studio and brought them over to his own publishing house, Awesome Comics (where they were ReTooled by Alan Moore). After Awesome folded, the characters (and Liefeld) returned to Image. Same goes for Glory, Liefeld's Captain Ersatz of Wonder Woman.
• Mantis is a truly bizarre example. She originated at Marvel Comics as a member of The Avengers, but after being written out of the series, was briefly published by DC Comics under the name "Willow", and later by Eclipse Comics under the name "Lorelei". She finally returned to the Marvel Universe a few years later and is currently part of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.
• The New York Four started off as part of DC Comics' Minx Line, but the sequel, The New York Five, was published by Vertigo Comics.
• Peter David's Fallen Angel started off at DC (in fact, the heroine, Lee, was heavily implied to be Linda Danvers under an assumed name), but was later picked up by IDW Publishing.
• Speaking of Wildstorm, The Boys started there. But it only lasted for six issues because DC were uneasy with the anti-superhero tone, and they cut a deal to make the title fully owned by author Garth Ennis, who then continued it on Dynamite Entertainment.
• Neil Gaiman's Angela was originally created for the Spawn series at Image Comics. After a massive legal battle that spanned years, Gaiman regained creative control of the character and brought her over to Marvel Comics. She entered the Marvel Universe at the close of the Age of Ultron Crisis Crossover.
• It is very common for comics based on an external license to change publishers, with the new publishers often reprinting the material commissioned from a previous publisher.
• The short-lived Darkwing Duck comic book was originally published by Boom Studios, but a new publisher known as Joe Books not only had all issues of the comic (with the exception of the last two) revised by original editor Aaron Sparrow and collected in an omnibus called Darkwing Duck: The Definitively Dangerous Edition, which was released in early 2015, but will also start publishing a new Darkwing Duck series.
• Between 1979 and 1995, Doctor Who Magazine was published by the UK branch of Marvel Comics. As a result, its long-running Doctor Who comic strip often intersected with the Marvel Universe, including crossovers with Death's Head and Captain Britain and even a brief intersection with the Fantastic Four and other mainstream Marvel heroes. Around 1989, a second Doctor Who comic strip was published for about a year in the UK magazine The Incredible Hulk Presents. In 1995, the publishing rights for DWM were sold to Italian-based Panini (which continues to publish the magazine as of 2016), and the Marvel connections ended.
• Scarlett was originally published by DC Comics, but is now owned by Monsterverse.
• Ramayan 3392 AD was originally published by Virgin Comics, but has since been relocated to Graphic India.
• Madman was for a long time published by Dark Horse Comics. Later, the series moved to Oni Press (under Mike Allred's Atomic Comics label), before moving again to Image.
• The Transformers comics have changed hands twice.
  • The Transformers (Marvel) and its successor Transformers: Generation 2 were originally published by Marvel Comics from 1984 to 1994, with trade paperbacks released by Titan in 2001. In 2002, a young and relatively unknown Canadian comic studio called Dreamwave Productions (originally formed as part of Image Comics) obtained the license to make new Transformers comics, with their flagship title Transformers: Generation One (a reboot not connected to Marvel's comics) accompanied by adaptations of the then-new Transformers: Armada and Transformers: Energon toylines.
  • Dreamwave collapsed in 2005 due to management issues and the license was picked up by IDW Publishing later that year, with a new series and a new continuity launching shortly after. IDW has since printed a number of Transformers series in their continuity, a sequel series set in the original Marvel continuity titled Transformers: Regeneration One, and reprints of the Marvel and Dreamwave stories. However, IDW's initial Marvel reprints omitted issues (or sometimes just individual pages) featuring characters Marvel owns, such as Spider-Man and Circuit Breaker^note in spite of being created for the Transformers comic, Marvel made it so that she'd make an appearance in Secret Wars II prior to her proper debut just to keep the rights to the character out of Hasbro's hands., as they were unable to negotiate the fees to use these characters. The earlier reprints by Titan included everything because Marvel went a lot easier on them, though IDW eventually was able to work a deal with Marvel and reprinted the Marvel comics a second time with the issues featuring Spider-Man and Circuit Breaker intact.
• The Angel: After The Fall (IDW Publishing) comic book series: After having crossed over with the Buffy (Dark Horse Comics) comics, Angel's story is now being continued in Dark Horse's spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9, Angel and Faith.
• The comic book adaptation of Muppet Babies (1984) was a mild example, with the first 17 issues published by Star Comics and the remaining 9 published by Star Comics' parent company Marvel Comics.
• The majority of The Muppet Show Comic Book and all five of the Muppet Classics miniseries were originally published by Boom! Studios. After Boom lost the license, the last intended arc of The Muppet Show Comic Book, titled Four Seasons, was published by Marvel Comics.
• The Brazilian comic Monica's Gang and its associated titles have gone through three different publishers. The comics were originally published by Abril starting in 1970 until Globo took over publishing duties in 1987, with Panini being the current publisher as of 2007.
• As with Transformers, the comic book license to G.I. Joe has changed a few times.
  • Marvel Comics published the first comic G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel) as well as the spinoff series G.I. Joe: Special Missions, the four-issue miniseries G.I. Joe: Order of Battle and the annual publication G.I. Joe Yearbook.
  • Dark Horse Comics published a short-lived comic book tie-in to G.I. Joe Extreme.
  • Devil's Due Publishing eventually acquired the comic book license and made a continuation of the Marvel Comics continuity that was initially published by Image Comics before Devil's Due seceded and published the comic themselves. They also published a comic for G.I. Joe: Sigma 6 and an Ultimate Universe take titled G.I. Joe: Reloaded.
  • IDW Publishing picked up the license after the end of Devil's Due Publishing's tenure and released a comic set in its own continuity as well as a continuation of the Marvel Comics continuity that ignored the events of the Devil's Due series.
• Archie Comics held the license for Sonic the Hedgehog for 24 years. After the cancellation of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and the end of their partnership with Sega in 2017, IDW Publishing was quickly given the Sonic license, and started Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW), set in a new continuity, the following year.
• Little Audrey started with St. John Publications in 1948 before moving to Harvey in 1952.
• Dead@17 was originally published by Viper Comics, but the franchise has since moved to Image Comics.
• The Parker Brothers electronic toy ROM the Space Knight received a comic book tie-in by Marvel Comics titled Rom: Spaceknight, which notably outlasted the original toy and has since written out the title character after Marvel lost the license. Decades later, Hasbro would acquire the rights to ROM and IDW Publishing would publish a new comic series that was divorced from the Marvel Comics version and was part of the Hasbro Comic Universe.
• The comic book tie-in to Mego's Micronauts toyline changed publishers as the toys themselves changed ownership. Mego originally licensed the IP to Marvel, who published a Micronauts comic book that was famous for crossing over with Marvel's other titles and running long after the original toyline went defunct.^note Marvel retained the rights to characters that were created explicitly for the Micronauts comic after the rights expired, but could only reuse the characters under new team name the Microns. In 2002, Image Comics was given the license to produce a short-lived comic book series when they obtained the license from then-rights holder Abrams Gentile Entertainment. After the rights to Micronauts ultimately ended up in the hands of Hasbro and they gave the license to IDW Publishing as they did with most of their other properties, yet another comic was published, which, like IDW's take on ROM, was part of the Hasbro Comic Universe.
• The publishing rights for Star Wars comics has jumped back and forth between publishers over the decades.
  • The comic rights originally belonged to Marvel Comics from 1977 to 1987, having a singular comic series.
  • Dark Horse Comics published Star Wars comics from 1991 to 2014. After Disney purchased the rights to the franchise, their publishing license would end with Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir (and due to being adapted from unreleased scripts of storylines from The Clone Wars, originally their only comic to not be under the Legends umbrella)
  • With Disney's purchase of the franchise, publishing rights returned to Marvel (also owned by Disney) starting in 2015. In 2017, Disney Lucasfilm also licensed IDW Publishing to produce an anthology comic aimed at younger readers, Star Wars Adventures.
  • In 2022, IDW's license expired, with Dark Horse Comics returning to publish Star Wars comics alongside Marvel. They also picked up the publishing rights to IDW's The High Republic Adventures, making it the only part of the Star Wars Adventures line to continue past its parent series.
• The Dennis the Menace (US) comic book ran from 1953 until 1982 under several different publishers. The series started with Standard Comics. Standard folded in 1956, although the comic did continue for another two years under the Pines Comics label. Fawcett Comics then took over the rights and published Dennis until 1980. During this time, reprints were published by Haliden and CBS Publishing. Hank Ketcham then sold the rights to Marvel Comics for a short-lived run in the early 80s. Dennis was also adapted as Dennis and the Bible Kids in 1977, published by Word Books, Inc. (now HarperCollins).
• The first twelve issues of Transmetropolitan were printed under DC's short-lived imprint Helix, with the remaining 48 issues and the Filth of the City and I Hate it Here specials published under Vertigo.
• The first four installments of the Adventures In Oz graphic novel series were published by First Comics, while the fifth and final graphic novel The Blue Witch of Oz was instead published under Dark Horse Comics.

• When news emerged of Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment, the Hachette Book Group immediately shuttered the Weinstein Books publisher and transferred its authors to the main Hachette publisher.
• When Brazilian publisher Cosac Naify went out of business in 2015, Companhia das Letras acquired the publishing rights to Captain Underpants and re-released the original translations.
• The Harry Potter series was originally distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books. In 2010, the series was re-released by Penguin because of Bloomsbury's new distribution deal.
  • However, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was published by Scholastic (the series' US distributor) in Canada and Little Brown in the UK.
• Family Skeleton Mysteries: The first three books were released by the Berkley publishing company under their "Berkley Prime Crime" imprint before the author switched publishers to Diversion Books for #4 and on.
• Ezra Jack Keats had several publishers throughout his life: Viking, Harper & Row, Macmillan, Greenwillow, and Four Winds Press. Beginning in the 1990s, Keats' book rights reverted to his estate and were republished by Viking.
• The Rotten Ralph books changed publishers multiple times. The first eight books were published by Houghton Mifflin, the next five by Harper Collins, the next four by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the next book by Houghton Mifflin again and the last two books by Farrar, Straus and Giroux once more.

• In 2013, right after acquiring Parlophone Records from Universal through EMI, Warner Music Group agreed to divest part of its combined catalogue to independent labels:
  • Radiohead had already moved to XL Recordings in 2007, and their Parlophone-era backlog was given to the label in turn. Because, Believe, Concord, Cherry Red, Woah Dad, the newly independent Chrysalis Records, RT Industries, and New State Music each acquired at least 10 former Warner/Parlophone artists. Some artists who went independent had their catalogues acquired by the labels they are currently signed to (in addition to Radiohead above, Hot Chip and Porcupine Tree’s major label catalogues went to Domino and Kscope, respectively). Because acquired nearly all of London Records (although the output of several London artists, notably Joy Division, New Order, All Saints, and White Dove, stayed with Warner).
  • Perhaps the biggest divestment went to Tommy Boy Records, an influential label during The Golden Age of Hip Hop and the rise of House Music that had a long semi-independent partnership with Warner in its heyday, but became independent in 2002. It reacquired nearly all of its catalog it had left with Warner after the split. Most notably, De La Soul's catalogue would finally hit streaming services... that is, until De La Soul made it known to their fans that Tommy Boy would get the vast majority of royalties from streaming, which led to legal problems between the two parties. In August 2021, Tommy Boy was sold to Reservoir Media, and De La Soul announced that their albums would soon be re-released thanks to re-negotiations with Reservoir. In March 2023, this finally came to fruition.
• Michael Jackson released his first solo albums on Motown, the same label to which The Jackson 5 were signed. For his fifth, Off the Wall, he went for Epic Records instead. The rest is history (to the point that some think that was his solo debut). This may have had something to do with The Jackson 5 / The Jacksons themselves jumping ship to Epic Records in 1975 after leaving Motown.
• Aerosmith started their career on Columbia Records. As their career started to dwindle on the early 80s, the label dropped them, so when they started Putting the Band Back Together, they signed with Geffen Records. The Career Resurrection that followed was enough for Columbia to sign them back in 1996. Beginning in 2022, Aerosmith's entire catalogue will be re-released by Universal Music Group, which owns Geffen.
• The Red Hot Chili Peppers were first signed to EMI America Records, but it was mostly fruitless — only their last album there, Mother's Milk, caused impact. So afterwards came a bidding war, a deal with Warner (Bros.) Records and Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and they became superstars.
• Van Halen were signed to Warner (Bros.) Records for all their career, but for their comeback album A Different Kind of Truth in 2012, they signed with Interscope instead.
• Nirvana were originally signed to Sub Pop, but when the label fell into financial hardship in 1990, the band left out of fear that they'd get bought out by a bigger label prone to Executive Meddling. At the recommendation of Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, they moved over to DGC Records, an imprint of Geffen Records that had signed Sonic Youth earlier that year.
• When Dave Grohl decided to form the Foo Fighters and release his playing all instruments record as the Self-Titled Album, he signed to Capitol as he knew their president from his Nirvana days. So when said executive left after the Foos did their second album in 97, Grohl left Capitol, and only signed to RCA when the home-made third album was done.
• The musical projects of Trent Reznor are an interesting case. After he left major label Interscope in 2007, he set up his own independent label, The Null Corporation, to release new material (such as Ghosts I-IV, The Slip and his and Atticus Ross' Oscar-winning soundtrack to The Social Network). At the time, this label went through RED Distribution, a distribution channel owned by Sony Music. After the success of Null's releases, Reznor's musical project How to Destroy Angels would end up signing with Sony subsidiary Columbia Records, and he would do the same with Nine Inch Nails for its comeback album Hesitation Marks (in the US; it was released by Polydor in the rest of the world). Reznor would later sign a new distribution deal for The Null Corporation with Capitol (in the US and Canada) and Caroline International (worldwide) starting with Not The Actual Events.
• Depeche Mode:
  • The band signed to Mute Records in 1980 and got licensed to Sire Records for North America. When Mute was bought by EMI in 2002, the band's deal with Sire remained in place until 2009, when they moved to Virgin and Capitol (two other EMI subsidiaries) to release Sounds of the Universe. In 2012, however, they left EMI altogether for Columbia Records worldwide, but the logo for Mute still appears on their debut Columbia album Delta Machine.
  • When Mute's catalogue was acquired by BMG Rights Management, the label was licensed to INgrooves and PIAS (and later Warner Music; which still holds the American license to the pre-2009 Depeche Mode catalogue). However, Depeche Mode's catalogue was instead licensed to Sony Music Entertainment (the owner of Columbia).
• Queen:
  • Greatest Flix underwent this before release due to the controversial Warner Home Video Rental Drive of '81, being released by Picture Music International through Thorn EMI Video (whose parent company, EMI, distributed their records in the UK), instead of by WEA (who distributed them in the USA) as was originally planned.
  • In the UK, Queen were originally signed to EMI until 1989, when they moved to the Parlophone Records sublabel. Parlophone would inherit the band's catalog outside of North America until 2011, when the band and their catalog moved over to Island Records under a more lucrative contract. After EMI dissolved in 2012, its assets were divided between Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, Island's parent company; Universal would subsequently put out "new" releases through Virgin EMI Records. In 2020, Virgin EMI was rebranded as a revival of EMI, thus putting Queen's music back where it first started.
  • In the US and Canada, Queen signed to Elektra Records and WEA and released their music under those labels until 1984's The Works, when they moved to Capitol Records (an EMI subsidiary), taking the rights to their backlog with them, as a result of the Warner Home Video Rental Drive and Elektra's wariness towards the disco sound on Hot Space. That deal would go on until 1990, when the band signed a new deal with Disney's Hollywood Records (which just so happened to be distributed by Elektra until 1995, when Polygram, and later Universal, took over), taking their back catalog with them. Now, Universal distributes Queen's music worldwide. These deals also encompass Queen members' solo output; perhaps most amusingly, Freddie's solo work has been rereleased by none other than Mercury Records.
• Limp Bizkit left their longtime label Interscope in 2012 and signed on to Birdman's Cash Money Records. Ultimately, the deal was short-lived and the band released their comeback album Still Sucks on Suretone Records.
• The Beatles were originally singed to Parlophone Records in the UK and Capitol Records in the US, but left them in 1968 upon opening their own vanity label, Apple Records, staying there even into their post-breakup solo careers. EMI, Parlophone's parent company, distributed Apple until 1976, after which the label was absorbed and the band members shifted to various other labels. John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had already respectively moved to Geffen Records, Warner (Bros.) Records, and Portrait Records, while Paul McCartney and Wings would move back to Parlophone in the UK and to Columbia Records in the US. McCartney would eventually return to Capitol Stateside as well in 1985. Lennon and Harrison's solo albums returned to Capitol/EMI/Universal by 2010, while the remainder of McCartney's solo catalog didn't return to Capitol until his contract with Concord Music ended in January 2017. Starr's discography remains scattered across different labels (including Capitol, Atlantic Records, Epic Records, and MNRK). And Harrison's solo albums hopped again to BMG in 2021 as part of a new deal inked with Harrison's estate that also includes the recordings of other artists on his vanity label Dark Horse (most notably Ravi Shankar and Attitudes), which has its own history of hopping distributors.
• After Mötley Crüe's contract with Elektra Records expired, they bought the rights to their masters and started their own label, Motley Music, before selling their entire catalogue to BMG in 2021.
• When soundtrack albums are expanded, they're not always on the same label that put out the original - examples are legion, like Jay Chattaway's Invasion U.S.A. (1985) (originally released on LP in 1985 by Varèse Sarabande in North America and Milan internationally; Intrada later issued the complete score in 2008).
• Cat Stevens' first two albums were released by Deram Records while his albums from Mona Bone Jakon to Back to Earth were released on A&M Records in North America and Island Records elsewhere. Since he returned to recording as Yusuf Islam he released An Other Cup on Atlantic, Roadsinger on Hip-O and Tell 'Em I'm Gone on Columbia.
• The Avalanches have always been signed to Modular in their home country of Australia and XL Recordings in the UK, but the North American rights to their debut album Since I Left You transferred between London-Sire, then Elektra Records, and currently, Interscope, with the Japanese rights going from independent label Toy's Factory to Universal. Their second album Wildflower was released worldwide in collaboration with four labels, the first three of which are Universal subsidiaries: Modular, EMI Australia, Astralwerks, and XL Recordings.
• One of the most legally important examples in music is Teena Marie, who was embroiled in a legal battle with Motown in 1982 as a result of signing with Epic Records: Motown had sued her for breach of contract, despite refusing to release the new material she had recently recorded, which prompted a countersuit from Teena that accused the label of withholding royalties in spite of her history of contractual compliance. In a huge victory for artists' creative freedom, Teena won the case, which caused a law entitled The Brockert Initiative to be passed that prohibits record companies from keeping artists under contract if they refuse to release any new material by them; this law enabled a number of popular artists in the 1980s and 1990s to leave their unsupportive record labels, such as George Michael, Tom Petty, Luther Vandross, and the Mary Jane Girls.
• For many years, a common practice for recording artists that changed labels would be to record an album (or two) of re-recordings of past hits, in order to allow the new label to reap some additional airplay and sales benefits. Here are a few examples:
  • Johnny Cash initially recorded for Sun Records. He later signed with Columbia Records and eventually recorded an album of re-recordings of Sun-era songs. In the late 1980s, Cash left Columbia and signed with Mercury Records and one of his first releases for the new label was yet another album of recordings of songs he'd previously recorded at both Sun and Columbia.
  • The Olympics ("Hully Gully", "Big Boy Pete" and others) recorded the original versions of their big hits on the Demon, Arvee and Tri-Disc labels. In 1966, they signed with Mirwood, who had them record Something Old, Something New, an album which included re-recordings of their past hits alongside newer material. Much to the annoyance of collectors, many reissues and various artists compilations have used those versions instead of the originals.
  • Little Richard had a short stint on Vee-Jay in the mid-60s, during which he recorded an album with re-recordings of his 1950s hits on Specialty.
  • Roy Orbison, as part of his all too brief Career Resurrection in the late '80s, was one of the first signings to the then-new American division of Virgin Records, His first album for Virgin (and last during his lifetime) was In Dreams, a two-disc set of re-recordings of his famous hits from his long stints on Monument, London, and MGM.
    • Orbison's catalogue is now distributed by Sony's Legacy Recordings.
• Another notorious Motown example involves Mary Wells, one of the early stars of the label. Right after getting her biggest hit in her career with "My Guy", Wells, angry that the money made from "My Guy" was reinvested into promoting The Supremes instead of her, freed herself from her Motown contract using the old "contracts signed by minors are null and void" trick (she signed the contract at 17) and went to 20th Century Fox's record label. Berry Gordy tried (and failed) to sue her for breach of contract; unsubstantiated rumors claim that he sabotaged her post-Motown career (after Fox, she went to Atco, then Jubilee, then Reprise) by putting pressure on radio stations and distributors with threats of withholding future Motown product if they played or sold her records.
• The Del-Vikings were involved in a rather messy example of this trope. After hitting it big with "Come Go with Me", which was initially on Fee Bee Records before Dot Records licensed it for national distribution, the group got a new manager. Said manager got the members who were underage at the time they signed with Fee Bee, which was all of them minus one, to sign a new contract with Mercury Records. This resulted in two different Del-Vikings groups, one on Mercury and one on Fee Bee/Dot, who released new records simultaneously to great confusion. (Meanwhile, some of their early demos were issued on an album by Luniverse, a label otherwise known for their Buchanan and Goodman "break-in" records.) Eventually, a lawsuit resulted in Mercury gaining exclusivity on the Del-Vikings name for recordings and the Fee Bee/Dot group renamed themselves The Versatiles.
• The Offspring released their first album through Nemesis Records, who dropped them after just two years. Brett Gurewitz later signed the band through his Epitaph label, releasing Ignition and Smash within two years. When Smash ended up becoming a Sleeper Hit, Epitaph tried to screw The Offspring out of royalties for album sales by attempting to sell the label to another corporation. Frontman Dexter Holland wasn't pleased and reluctantly signed with Columbia Records in 1996 just to flee from Gurewitz. The band continued to release their music through Columbia (though their Columbia debut, Ixnay on the Hombre, was released through Epitaph in Europe for contractual reasons) until 2012's Days Go By. The Offspring is now signed to Concord Records, and their Columbia catalogue (and all their older compositions) are now owned by Round Hill Music.
  • After the group's signing to Columbia was announced, some in the music press trashed them as sellouts once it was revealed Epitaph had offered them a more lucrative contract. Holland had this to say about that:
    We took less money to sign with Columbia. We had to sign for more records to go with Columbia. Our signing with Columbia was not to try and make more money. We did it because we won't record for someone who thinks he can force us to. We won't record for a guy who's worse than a major label. We're gonna do whatever the fuck we want to."
• Hoo boy, David Bowie. One of the most label hop-happy solo artists in the music business, Bowie had recorded and released music under at least fourteen different labels over the course of a career spanning roughly half a century; this actually ended up making his back-catalog the source of quite a few legal quandaries over the years, most notably with his pre-Space Oddity material, as illustrated with the infamous shelving of Toy in 2001. In order, Bowie has operated under the following record labels:
  • Vocalion Pop (1964)
  • Parlophone Records (1964-1965)^note Parlophone also inherited the rights to Bowie's catalog following the dissolution of EMI
  • Pye Records (1966)
  • Deram Records (1966-1967)
  • Mercury Records (1969-1971)^note Space Oddity was originally released through Mercury's parent label, Philips Records, in the UK and several other countries, but the contract was under Mercury. Bowie was dropped from the label in 1971 at the request of his manager, Tony Defries, who disliked the way that they were handling Bowie's finances. Mercury gave up the rights to the recordings Bowie made under them after Defries paid off his debts to the label.
  • B&C Records (1971)^note One single released under the pseudonym "Arnold Corns," during Bowie's attempts to get out of his Mercury contract
  • RCA Records (1971-1982)^note RCA also reissued Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold the World worldwide, being granted legal ownership of them once Bowie signed onto the label; RCA's rights to Bowie's 1969-1982 catalog would expire in 1988. Bowie left the label due to a mix of Creative Differences, a perception that RCA was "milking" his catalog, and the expiration of a costly and lopsided legal agreement with his ex-manager. He would later make amends with RCA, leading them to be given UK distribution rights for Bowie's 90's albums as well as for The Next Day & ★.
  • EMI (1983-2001)^note Most of Bowie's material during this era was released under various EMI sublabels; Tin Machine and its associated singles, meanwhile, were released through EMI alone. Bowie officially split from EMI as his main label in 1990 due to their reservations towards Tin Machine, but allowed them to release his music internationally until 2001.
    • EMI America Records (1983-1988)
    • Virgin Records (1993-2001)^note Various single releases and albums from 1993-1997 were released through Virgin outside of the UK; Virgin also distributed remastered reissues of his 1983-1988 backlog in 1995 and his 1969-1989 backlog in 1999. 'hours...' was released exclusively through Virgin. Bowie eventually left the label in 2001 due to the shelving of Toy.
  • Rykodisc (1989-1992)^note Remastered reissues of 1969-1981 backlog, plus Sound+Vision Boxed Set and "Fame '90" single
  • Victory Music (1991)^note Singles from this period released through Victory's parent label, London Records
  • Arista Records (1993-1997)^note Black Tie White Noise was specifically released through Arista's sublabel Savage Records
  • Columbia Records (2002-2017)^note Also held ownership of Outside, Earthling, and 'hours...' until 2016.
  • Warner Music Group (beginning in 2023)^note re-releases of his Columbia Records albums
• Chicago released its albums first through Columbia Records, where they would thrive for more than a decade until 1980's Chicago XIV. After their release from Columbia the following year, Chicago then signed a joint record deal with Full Moon Records and Warner (Bros.) Records to release Chicago 16, and they would stay in both labels (though they were transferred to Warner sister label Reprise starting with Chicago 19) until Twenty 1 in 1991. After a one-album deal with Giant Records in 1995, the band went indie, and in the process reacquired their Columbia output from Sony Music Entertainment under a legal settlement. The band then signed with Warner-owned Rhino Records, sending their Columbia albums to them in the process, for eight years before deciding to go indie again in 2011.
• Alice in Chains released all of their albums through Columbia Records until their breakup in 2002, after the death of lead vocalist Layne Staley. When the band reunited with William DuVall replacing Staley several years later, they signed with Virgin Records for their 2009 comeback album, Black Gives Way to Blue. When Virgin parent EMI went belly-up, they were transferred to Virgin parent Capitol Records for The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here in 2013. Five years after that, the band parted ways with Capitol and signed with BMG for Rainier Fog.
• Genesis were originally signed onto Decca Records, a deal which lasted all of one album before the band were dropped due to it underperforming. They would then sign with Charisma Records in the UK and Impulse! Records in the US, the latter of which also lasted all of one album before having Charisma distribute them on both sides of the Pond. In the UK, they would stay on Charisma until its 1986 absorption by Virgin Records, onto whom the band would move. In the US, meanwhile, Genesis would sign onto Atco Records in 1974 before moving onto their parent label, Atlantic Records, after the departure of Steve Hackett. Atlantic would inherit the US rights to the 1971-1973 albums as a result.
• While Peter Gabriel stuck with Charisma Records for British distribution of his albums until Charisma folded in 1986, leading him to switch to his Real World Records vanity label, he certainly wasn't as consistent with his American distributors. His debut album was released in the US by Atco Records (who were also Genesis' American distributors at the time), and his second album was released on Atco's parent label, Atlantic Records. Shortly before his third album's release in 1980, Atlantic dropped him because they no longer considered his work commercially viable (both due to the heavier influence of African music and because executives misinterpreted "Lead a Normal Life" as a Creator Breakdown). As a result, the album was released on Mercury Records instead. Just before Mercury's US release of the album, Gabriel decided to hop over to Geffen Records, becoming one of their earliest signed artists. Gabriel would stick with Geffen for US distribution of all his later albums until 2008, when he switched to Rykodisc for distribution of his collaborative album Big Blue Ball. Afterwards, all his albums would be distributed in the US by Real World Records.
• Taylor Swift left her longtime home of Big Machine Records in 2018 for Universal Music Group's subsidiary Republic Records after her contract with the former had been fulfilled.
• Brazilian singer Tim Maia's tempestive behavior was easily demonstrated by how he released albums in every major between the 1970s and 1990s, usually leaving on bad terms. Twice he was forced to release independently due to this.
• Thanks to frustrations with Capitol Records' distribution of their work in the U.S., Pink Floyd switched to Columbia Records in the region for the release of Wish You Were Here (1975) and stayed there until the rights to the band's post-Dark Side albums transferred back to Capitol in 2000. The band's back catalog transferred back to Sony again in 2016 under the band's Pink Floyd Records imprint in the wake of the sale of EMI, while Parlophone Records handles distribution in the U.K. and Europe.
• Rush switched to Atlantic Records from Mercury Records for U.S. and international distribution with Presto in 1989. In 2011, they switched to Roadrunner Records for the remainder of their career. In Canada, they released their debut on Moon Records, which led to their deal with Mercury. The band then moved to Anthem, where they stayed until their breakup, though Anthem itself switched distribution several times, from Polydor to Capitol, to Sony, to Universal.
• Joni Mitchell started her recording career on Reprise Records before moving to Asylum Records (a sister label of Elektra Records) for her most popular work. She was one of Geffen Records' first signings in the '80s, before moving back to Reprise, then finally to Starbucks' Hear Music before her retirement. 1991's Night Ride Home would be the first time her work was on a label not distributed by Warner (Bros.) Records after Geffen changed its distribution to MCA in 1990.
• R.E.M. released their debut single, "Radio Free Europe", on local indie label Hib-Tone Records before signing onto I.R.S. Records the following year. In 1988, they famously jumped ship to Warner (Bros.) Records after their already-shaky relationship with I.R.S. became increasingly volatile over the years, especially after they shifted distributors from A&M Records to MCA in 1985. R.E.M. would remain on Warner for the remainder of their lifetime. In 2013, Concord bought the rights to their catalog, and in 2017 began re-issuing their material under Craft Recordings.
• British artist management company EG cycled through a number of different distributors over the years.
  • In the UK, EG initially licensed out their artists' work to Island Records until 1975, when the group eventually transformed into their own record label and entered a distribution deal with Polydor Records. This lasted until 1991, when they moved over to Virgin Records, where they now remain.
  • In the US, the band were consistently aligned with Warner Music Group until the shift to Virgin in 1991. Exactly which Warner labels an act was signed to varied: Roxy Music for instance bounced between Reprise Records, Atco Records, and Warner (Bros.) Records, while King Crimson stayed on Atlantic Records until their first breakup in 1974, then moved to Warner Bros. from their 1981 reformation until 1989, when EG gained the rights to their material worldwide. The Crim themselves would found their own Discipline Global Mobile label in the '90s, shifting from EG & Virgin to Sanctuary Records in 2002 before moving to a self-distributed model when Sanctuary closed in 2007.
• Hoo boy, Sparks. The Mael brothers' idiosyncratic style has scared off record labels left and right, with their initial deal with Bearsville, the vanity label from Todd Rundgren distributed by Warner Bros., ending after only two albums. Yet, their gigantic popularity in Europe led to stints on respected mini-major labels there such as Island (where their highly successful Kimono My House made them superstars), Virgin, Oasis (owned by Giorgio Moroder), Carrere, and Logic. In the US, they seemed to hop from album to album after their deal with Bearsville ended, with their homes including Island’s fledgling US division, Columbia, Elektra, Atlantic, Curb (with distribution by MCA), Rhino, Roadrunner, Oglio, Palm (founded by Island founder Chris Blackwell), Artful, their own vanity label Lil' Beethoven, and In The Red. The masters for much of their output after their stint on Island remain with them, and they recently signed a deal with the new incarnation of BMG for worldwide distribution. Their supergroup with Franz Ferdinand, FFS, released on that band’s label Domino. And if that wasn’t enough, the soundtrack to their documentary The Sparks Brothers was released by Universal Music Group, the soundtrack to their film Annette went to respected soundtrack label Milan (owned by Sony since 2019), and they returned to Island again in 2023 for This Girl Is Crying In Their Latte.
• Another high-profile hop was ABBA. Always with Polar Music in Sweden, their manager negotiated separate deals with multiple record companies around the world, territory by territory, in their heyday. This was an unheard of approach then, and certainly not always the case now. The Swedes' worldwide label homes included, to name a few, Atlantic in the US and Canada, Epic in the UK and Israel, RCA Victor in Oceania and Latin America, Vogue in France, Sunshine in South Africa, Discomate in Japan, and Polydor in the rest of Europe and Asia. Most of these arrangements ended in 1989, when PolyGram (Polydor's parent company) acquired Polar, and ABBA's catalog with it. The remaining arrangements expired in 1992. To celebrate ABBA's catalog going under one worldwide roof, as well as their burgeoning return to mainstream popularity, Polydor released ABBA's Gold: Greatest Hits later that year. Almost three decades later, they jumped ship to Capitol, another label under the umbrella of what is now the Universal Music Group, for their comeback album Voyage.
• This happened quite a lot with Yellow Magic Orchestra, especially internationally.
  • In the US and Europe, YMO were originally signed onto A&M Records; an executive from them signed the band on after catching a live performance in support of their debut album. The band remained on A&M until 1981, when the label dropped them following diminishing commercial returns that culminated in the chart failure of BGM, resulting in an 11 year period where YMO's music was relegated to No Export for You status in the States. For European distribution, meanwhile, YMO switched over to using their Japanese label, Alfa Records, directly for Technodelic and a belated release of Solid State Survivor, before Alfa partnered with indie label Pick Up Records to handle the rest.
  • For the 1992-1993 reunion, the band signed onto Toshiba EMI subsidiary Eastworld Records in Japan rather than Alfa; the fact that Alfa still owned the trademark rights to the "Yellow Magic Orchestra" name meant that the band had to bill themselves as "Not YMO" during the reunion. EMI would distribute Technodon themselves in Europe, but not North America. Meanwhile, Alfa would partner with indie label Restless Records to release the 1992 remastered CDs of YMO's 1978-1984 catalog in not only Europe, but for the first time since 1981, the US as well. Unfortunately, presumably due to low sales (given the rise of grunge the previous year, reflected in the later scarcity of secondhand copies), the Restless deal ultimately fell through, and Alfa would never again pursue distributing YMO in America.
  • During their later reunions in the 2000s and 2010s, they would switch over to Ryuichi Sakamoto's own Commmons Records label (note the three M's), while Alfa, now owned by Sony Music, would license out the band's back catalog to Sony affiliates Epic Records and GT Music for reissues in Japan, Europe, Canada, with reissue label Music on Vinyl (and its sister branch Music on CD) taking over in Europe from 2015 onwards. Meanwhile, Technodon would fall under the ownership of Universal Music Group, who bought out most of EMI's assets following their initial dissolution in 2012; UMG would reissue Technodon on both SACD and, for the first time, LP in 2020 to coincide with Alfa's 40th anniversary reissues.
• Ryuichi Sakamoto's work is scattered across a huge amount of labels, so much so that it plays a big role in why the majority of his discography is stuck in Keep Circulating the Tapes purgatory (Sakamoto is known for many things as an artist, and commercial success is not one of them outside his soundtrack releases).
  • In Japan, Sakamoto's work bounced between Better Days Records, Alfa Records (due to his contract as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra), School Records, Midi Inc, Terrapin Records, Virgin Records, Güt Records, and Warner Music Group before finally settling on his vanity label, Commmons (note the three M's). Sony Music would inherit the rights to a good chunk of Sakamoto's back-catalog in Japan, making it easier to keep his earlier albums in print.
  • Internationally, Sakamoto's catalog has changed hands even more frequently, shifting from Island Records, Epic Records, 10 Records, CBS Records, Virgin Records, Elektra Records, Milan Records, KAB America, and Decca Records, in many cases hopping back and forth between previous labels (for instance, Neo Geo was distributed by Epic in the US after being away from them since Left Handed Dream six years prior, while Milan has handled most of Sakamoto's international releases in The New '10s after briefly distributing his work in the mid-'90s).
• P.D.Q. Bach, Peter Schickele's Affectionate Parody of Classical Music composers, was initially signed to Vanguard Records before switching to audiophile classical label Telarc in 1989, staying there for the rest of his career.
• Jean-Michel Jarre's debut single was released on Pathé Records before he moved to Sam Fox for his debut album, kickstarting his longstanding working relationship with music executive Francis Dreyfus. After the first album, Dreyfus moved him over to Eden Roc, then to Motors Records for Oxygène. Once that album became a success, Jarre was shifted over to Dreyfus' larger eponymous label, partnering with Polydor Records to distribute his work internationally. In 1997, Jarre would switch to Epic Records for international distribution, and after completing his contract with Dreyfus, he moved over to Warner Music Group in France, first signing onto EastWest before sticking to Warner Music France until 2007, when he briefly moved over to Capitol Records and EMI. Eventually, Jarre would settle down on Columbia Records in The New '10s, remaining there to this day.
• After releasing four albums on Mercury Records (the third of which was put out under the Fontana Records imprint), Tears for Fears switched to Epic Records just before the commercial release of Raoul and the Kings of Spain (the move was so late, in fact, that early promo CDs were still on Mercury). The deal fell through after the album undersold, leading them to return to Mercury's parent company, Universal Music Group, afterwards, jumping between various labels under their wing. Everybody Loves a Happy Ending would be released by New Door Records, the Greatest Hits Album Rule the World would be jointly put out by Virgin EMI, Mercury, and UMe, and their next studio album, The Tipping Point, would be released through Concord Records.
• Kraftwerk were originally signed to Philips Records, with Autobahn being distributed in the US by the Vertigo Records sublabel. For Radio-Activity, they shifted to EMI under their vanity imprint Klink Klang, with distribution in various other regions (including the US) being handled by Capitol Records. In the '80s, EMI would take over from Capitol everywhere except North America, where the band switched to Warner (Bros.) Records, who then moved them over to Elektra Records in 1986; Elektra would reissue the Warner albums in the wake of this. For Tour de France Soundtracks, the band moved over to Astralwerks in the US and back to EMI in Canada and Mexico. Finally, Parlophone Records would inherit the rights to the band's catalog worldwide following the dissolution of EMI.
• Frank Zappa was originally signed to Verve Records. When the contract expired in 1967, he and manager Herb Cohen successfully negotiated with Verve to open Bizarre Records as a vanity imprint. Verve distributed Zappa's releases under Bizarre until 1969, when Reprise Records took over. In 1973, Bizarre went under, and Zappa and Cohen concurrently opened DiscReet Records as a new imprint under Warner (Bros.) Records. However, legal issues with Cohen would result in Zappa cutting ties with Warner and opening Zappa Records under Phonogram in 1977. In 1981, he would open Barking Pumpkin Records and stay there for the rest of his life, partnering with Rykodisc and EMI; Ryko would inherit the rights to the Zappa catalog on CD until 2012, when Zappa's estate took the rights over to Universal Music Group. They remain owned by Universal to this day.
• Fall Out Boy is another interesting case. When they first signed to Island Records, they gave the band money to sign to Fueled by Ramen (at the time, a small independent label that was already scouting them) for a one-off debut album. That album, Take This To Your Grave, became a smash hit in the indie circuit. They hopped back to Island for a three-album deal (which led to another three-album deal after the end of their hiatus), but not without FOB member Pete Wentz starting Decaydance, his own vanity label, with distribution from FBR. This partnership proved even more successful, to the point where FBR became a big name in the emo genre and was later acquired by Atlantic Records after a long-term distribution deal. And once Fall Out Boy's deal with Island ended, they returned to FBR (now under the Elektra Records umbrella) twenty years later for their eighth album So Much (for) Stardust.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic first signed onto Capitol Records, through whom he released his debut single, "My Bologna". Shortly after, however, Al learned that Capitol were uninterested in promoting him and released the EP Another One Rides the Bus himself under the one-off vanity label Placebo Records, later earning a distribution deal with TK Records. However, TK quickly went under, leading Al to sign with Scotti Bros, who put him under the imprint Rock 'n Roll Records. This deal continued until Scotti Bros. changed distributors from Columbia Records to BMG in 1990, after which they closed Rock 'n Roll and moved him under their main wing. In 1999, Al moved over to Volcano Records and stayed there for the next 15 years, moving over to RCA Records for Mandatory Fun in 2014.
• Run–D.M.C. were originally signed to Profile Records in the US and 4th & Broadway Records in the UK. While they stuck with Profile Stateside, in the UK, they shifted over to London Records in 1986, then got Profile to distribute them worldwide during the '90s. In 1999, they moved over to Arista Records after their buyout of Profile.
• Elton John originally signed onto fledgling indie label DJM Records in the UK and MCA in the US; MCA initially handled his work through subsidiary label Uni Records before switching to distributing John's work themselves in 1973. In 1976, John switched over to his vanity imprint, the Rocket Record Company, which had previously been an outlet for other artists for three years; Rocket would switch distributors to Phonogram in 1978, while John's would sign a new Stateside deal with Geffen Records in 1981. John would move back to MCA in the US during the second half of the '80s before switching to PolyGram worldwide in the mid-90s, with them handling his releases through various scattered sublabels, a practice that would continue after PolyGram's absorption into Universal Music Group in 1999.
• Electric Light Orchestra were initially signed to Harvest Records in the UK and United Artists Records in the US. After two albums, the band moved over to Warner (Bros.) Records in the UK before their manager, Don Arden, opened his own label, Jet Records, in 1974, moving the band there. While Jet was distributed by United Artists in the US, in Britain, they were handled by Island Records for a year, then Polydor Records for another before moving to United Artists worldwide. In 1978, Jet switched distributors again to Columbia Records, a deal that would remain in place until Arden shut down the label in 1985. Because of Jet's closure, Balance of Power and Zoom were released through Epic Records (with CBS Associated Records handling the US release of the former) before the band moved back to Columbia for their material as Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra.
• Like many Virgin Records acts, Culture Club's catalog was originally licensed out to Epic Records in the United States before Virgin opened an in-house American division in 1986, who took control of the band's material Stateside from that point onward. For the band's 2018 album Life, they moved over to BMG.
• Mike Oldfield was originally signed to Virgin Records as their first artist. Virgin distributed his work worldwide (including through Atlantic Records for most territories for the first release of Tubular Bells), save for a brief period in 1980-1982 where he was licensed out to Epic Records in the US, encompassing QE2, Five Miles Out, and a reissue of Tubular Bells. Thanks to his relationship with the label growing increasingly strained over the years, Oldfield jumped ship to WEA in Europe and Reprise Records in the States as soon as his contract was completed in 1991. He would remain on the labels until 2003, when he moved over to Mercury Records, then went back to Virgin in 2014 during its stint as "Virgin EMI," having reconciled with CEO Richard Branson. Oldfield would then be shifted over to EMI when the label was revived in 2020.
• David Sylvian initially spent his solo career on Virgin Records, carrying over from the tail end of his time with Japan, before shifting to his own independent label, Samadhi Sound, in 2003. In The New '20s, he would partner with Anglo-German independent label Grönland Records for compilations and archival releases.
• MGMT are an interesting case that occurred within a single album. The band were originally signed to RED Ink Records, a small-scale imprint founded by Sony Music and RED Distribution, and released Oracular Spectacular through them. When the album proved to be a cult hit, in part due to its aggressive advance promotion, the band were moved over to Sony's main label, Columbia Records, who gave the record a wider release. The band would continue to put out subsequent material through Columbia.
  • In a similar vein, Passion Pit released their first EP Chunk of Change through a RED-distributed independent label, Frenchkiss Records. When "Sleepyhead" and "Little Secrets" became big hits on the indie circuit, they hopped to Columbia for their debut album Manners.
• Steely Dan were originally signed to ABC Records, the parent label of the iconic jazz imprint Impulse! Records. When MCA bought out and absorbed ABC in 1979, the band were moved over there, releasing Gaucho through MCA before splitting up. In the aftermath of their breakup, Donald Fagen signed with Warner (Bros.) Records to release The Nightfly, and his contract with Warner meant that when the Dans of Steel finally reunited and put out Two Against Nature in 2000, it was handled by Reprise Records (who previously put out Fagen's Kamakiriad) in conjunction with Giant Records, an imprint that Warner created in 1990 to fill the void after the sale of Geffen Records to... MCA. Reprise would handle Everything Must Go themselves three years later.
• The sale of Geffen Records to MCA impacted two artists signed to WEA abroad, Chris Rea and Enya, who were both signed to Geffen in the US. Since they could not move to non-WEA labels, Reprise came to the rescue and quickly inked deals with both.
• Being an immensely prolific artist who constantly fought for artistic freedom, Frank Sinatra inevitably spread himself out across a number of labels. Initially singed to Columbia Records, he moved over to Capitol Records in 1954 before moving to his newly opened vanity label, Reprise Records, in 1961. The Reprise deal would last even after its buyout by Warner (Bros.) Records in 1963 and shuttering in 1976, with Sinatra keeping it alive for his own releases until the commercial failure of She Shot Me Down in 1981. In 1984, Sinatra would sign with Quincy Jones' own Warner-backed vanity imprint, Qwest Records, only to leave that label after the failure of L.A. Is My Lady and the scrapping of its planned follow-up in 1988. Sinatra ultimately returned to Capitol in time for the Duets duology in the early '90s.
• The Cure were originally signed to Fiction Records, a sublabel of Polydor Records, who distributed their material worldwide. In 1982, they cut a North American deal with A&M Records, which lasted all of one album before the band went on hiatus; when they returned, they hopped over to Sire Records in the region, which also lasted only one album before the band moved to Sire's sister label, Elektra Records^note Elektra would inherit the rights to Pornography from A&M in 1988, while Sire maintains ownership of The Top to this day. The Fiction/Elektra arrangement would last all the way until 2000, after which they moved over to Geffen Records worldwide^note The Cure was co-distributed by co-producer Ross Robinson's I Am imprint outside the US, while 4:13 Dream was co-distributed by Suretone Records worldwide.
• Rick Astley was originally singed to RCA Records and remained there until the early '90s, when he retired from music to look after his family. After he came out of retirement in 2000, he signed a new deal with Polydor Records, who released Keep It Turned On through their Cruz Music imprint. The Polydor deal lasted only for that album, with Astley returning to RCA for 2005's Portrait before moving over to BMG for all of his following material.
• Yello have hopped between multiple labels over the years. They put out their debut single, "I.T. Splash", through indie label Periphery Perfume before signing with Vertigo Records in continental Europe, Ralph Records in the US, and Do It Records in the UK. In 1983, they moved over to Elektra Records in the US and Stiff Records in the UK; in 1985, they moved over to Elektra in the UK as well. Vertigo's sister label, Mercury Records, bought out Yello's US & UK contracts that same year, resulting in both them and Elektra releasing their own editions of Stella simultaneously. Shortly after, they moved over to Mercury worldwide, briefly hopping onto Fontana Records for Flag. Yello stayed on Mercury for the remainder of the 20th century in the UK & Europe, while in the US they moved over to sister label 4th & Broadway in the mid-'90s. Afterwards, the band put out The Eye through Motor Records (in conjunction with Radikal Records in the US) before moving over to Polydor Records, where they remain to this day.

• As Interlopers is a multiple animator project, episodes aren't hosted on just one channel, which can admittedly be confusing for newcomers. Chara Vs Buddy and Chara Vs Jim Sterling were uploaded on NCHProductions, VS Béte Noire was hosted by Camila Cuevas, Chara's Hate came out on Jael Peñaloza's channel, and The Good, The Bad, and the Kiwi, Pt.1 was uploaded to xxTC-96xx, TC-96's official -YouTube-channel. And that's not to mention the shorts, which are uploaded in a random pattern with no trailers or release dates beforehand.
• Five Nights at Freddy's Dares/Asks (Zero2zero 2) was originally uploaded on Zero2zero 2's YouTube channel but because of her quitting the platform in late-2021 to focus on Real Life, the series ended up moving to the M8's Animations channel from Dare 6 onwards.
• When Blip.tv closed down in 2015, everyone on there either had to Channel Hop or go dark.
• Many of the current and former contributors to Channel Awesome, including Doug Walker himself, started out on YouTube. In Walker's case, he was driven to create the site because YouTube started removing his videos due to copyright issues.
  In 2012, Doug, Brad, Lindsay, and Todd came back to YouTube with the help of Blip on the League of SuperCritics channel. However, various issues as the years went on led to respective dissolutions surrounding Blip's 2015 shutdown. The contributors moved onto their own individual channels: Channel Awesome, Stoned Gremlin Productions, Lindsay Ellis, and Todd in the Shadows.
• Many video reviewers changed their video providers several times: Usually starting at YouTube, they'd bounce to Revver, Blip, Springboard, Maker, Screenwave, Vessel, and Vidme, many, if not all, shut down as of December 2017. Doug Walker's current non-YouTube host is Vimeo, after losing Blip and the latter three in a 28-month span.
  • Brad Jones ended up with a weird compromise: The Cinema Snob started releasing his reviews of Parallel Porn Titles on Pornhub to bypass how YouTube got less acceptive to even mentions of objectionable content.
• The Escapist was both the channel that several works hopped on and then hopped off of a few times in its existence:
  • Zero Punctuation started out very briefly as a series of YouTube reviews before getting picked up by The Escapist as a proper series in 2007, lasting all the way until 2023. In late 2023, creator Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw would resign from The Escapist (for reasons mentioned below), relaunching the review show as Fully Ramblomatic (which was the very original, pre-release title of the series, done due to Yahtzee not owning the rights to Zero Punctuation) as part of Second Wind.
  • Extra Credits was briefly an independent series before being picked up and airing as part of The Escapist, but they left following the site cutting out the funding for the series, moving back to YouTube briefly before ending up on Penny Arcade's PATV. After that, they got their own website with their videos hosted on their YouTube channel, and now the website is mostly defunct and content is split between two YouTube channels ExtraCredits and Extra Play.
  • Jimquisition started out on Destructoid before being syndicated by The Escapist. In 2014, Jim Sterling left The Escapist as well to make their show completely ad-free by funding it through Patreon.
  • In November 2023, all of the site's video content producers resigned in solidarity following the sudden firing of editor-in-chief Nick Calandra. Most of them — including Cold Take with Sebastian "Frost" Ruiz and In the Frame with Darren Mooney — immigrated to Second Wind, a newly-formed creator-owned site spearheaded by Yahtzee and Calandra as a new platform for former Escapist staff.
  • Adventure Is Nigh — an Actual Play series involving various Escapist talent — was left in a brief limbo following the mass resignation, with Yahtzee and Calandra going on record following Second Wind's debut that they were still negotiating obtaining the rights to the series. In December 2023, they announced that they were successful, with the series set to continue on their channel, also including their backlog (two completed seasons and an in-progress third season) set to be reuploaded on their account.
• Rooster Teeth actually predated streaming, but has since been on a lot of providers, such as Blip, Youtube, and their current preference (as the Adpocalypse is making Youtube less viable), VRV.
• Discussed in the Script Fic Calvin & Hobbes: The Series:
  Jack: Faster than the speed of light, eh? When did this show move to the Sci-Fi Channel?^*It should be noted that the "show" is on Nickelodeon.
• Seasons 1 through 5 of Epic Rap Battles of History were produced by Maker Studios, but after Maker got fully absorbed into Disney (getting rebranded as the Disney Digital Network), ERB opted to go independent from Season 6 onwards.
• Fuse TV's Insane Clown Posse Theater was intended as a web series but caught on and became part of the regular network lineup.
• Seth in the Pokécity originally published new episodes on Poké Town, the same website that The Pokémon Squad and The Looney Scientists Show are published on. As of the episode "Don't Trust the J in Apartment 23", it was moved over to DeviantArt. The first four episodes are still readily available on Poké Town, though.
• The first season of Meta Runner premiered on the mainline SMG4 channel. The remaining two seasons are exclusive to the standalone Glitch Productions channel, while a Compilation Movie of Season 1 was uploaded to the Glitch channel on its launch day.
• Originally Robotbox and Cactus was hosted on keentoons.com, along with a mirror at corporate-product.com. The latter was then moved to eatthattoast.com, where the webcomic of a similar name and Hot Ham Water were also eventually hosted. The animated cartoons stayed on eatthattoast.com until the site changed to Tumblr format to host only the comic. Meanwhile, as the keentoons subdomain expired, the main Keenspot website took up the mantle of hosting Robotbox and Hot Ham Water.
• Some of NoonboryKedabory's fanfics (such as A Berry Bad Idea, Fever Moon, and Numberjacks Advanced, were originally posted on FanFiction.Net, but were later moved to Archive of Our Own due to low numbers.
• In 2024, TCNick3 of the Party Crashers started livestreaming on YouTube instead of Twitch, allowing viewers to watch his VO Ds whenever they wanted without having to worry about the VO Ds getting removed after 3 months unlike Twitch. This was unfortunately short-lived, as Nick states in this community post that he would go back to livestreaming on Twitch in April of that same year due to YouTube giving him trouble. Thankfully, he made a new channel for archiving his VODs.

• Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released by Williams Electronics. The same team returned for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, released by Stern Pinball, due to Williams leaving the industry several years earlier.

• In the late 1940s, CBS head William S. Paley conducted a famous "talent raid" of rival NBC, snatching away such popular shows as The Jack Benny Program, Amos 'n' Andy, The Burns and Allen Show, The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show, and The Red Skelton Show. The move led to CBS becoming the ratings leader in 1949, establishing a position of dominance that the network would enjoy into the television era and wouldn't relinquish until the late '70s.
• Major Bowes' Amateur Hour stated out as a local progam on WHN in New York in 1934, then was picked up by NBC for one season in 1935-36 before going to CBS, where it stayed until 1945. A revival under the title The Orignal Amateur Hour hosted by Ted Mack (Bowes died in 1946) aired on ABC from 1948 to 1952. Mack also hosted the TV adaptation, one of the few programs to air on all the networks in the 1950s, which was on DuMont in 1948-49, then NBC in 1949-54, then ABC in 1955-57, then NBC again in 1957-58, then CBS in 1959, then ABC again in 1960, then CBS again in 1960-70, after which it fell victim to The Rural Purge.
• Catt's Sunday Jazz Brunch, a local program in Mobile, Alabama began on his founded WZEW in 1984, then was moved to WMXC^note Formerly WKRG-FM. It was shortly after the family of the original founder sold off both FM and AM stations to another company. Both are currently owned by iHeartMedia. in 1994, then returned to WZEW, then moved to another station WHIL^note NPR member station. Spring Hill College owned WHIL at that time, now owned by The University of Alabama under a translator of Alabama Public Radio, then returned to WZEW again and it remained until after his death.
• In 2023, long-running BBC Radio 2 morning DJ Ken Bruce left to take up much the same slot on Greatest Hits Radio. A DJ getting a new job wouldn't normally be this trope, but he took the PopMaster quiz with him, resulting in Radio 2 having to devise a new quiz format, Ten to the Top.

• Arthur has saw this happen to its toy license. The license originally belonged to Playskool, but then passed on to Eden Toys after just a short stint. When Eden Toys went defunct, it passed on to a little-known company called Crocodile Creek and has remained since.
• Care Bears: Originally started out on Kenner. Executive Meddling involving forcing the Green Aesop down people's throat among other things ^note i.e. dropping some of the cousins and changing the remaining ones into bears caused the toys to lose popularity in the late 90s, and the license was sold to Play-Along Toys in 1999, who managed to salvage the franchise and bring it back to profitability. Then Hasbro managed to pry the license out of Play-Along's hands in late 2007. Hasbro proceeded to treat the franchise poorly ^note Launching a TV series only in 2012, and it took until 2013 for the toys to appear. Some also speculated that the unexpected rise of popularity in another one of their franchises, along with its extremely vocal fanbase, was another cause of this. When the show wasn't renewed for a second season in 2013, it displeased American Greetings, who then revoked Hasbro's license and sold it to a company called Just Play Inc.
• Strawberry Shortcake: Originally started out on Kenner like Care Bears, but then eventually lost steam due to neglect of the franchise. The license was sold to Bandai in the early 2000s, who like Play-Along managed to bring the series back to profitability. Then executive meddling happened and the license went from Bandai to Playmates Toys. The decision by Playmates to revamp the franchise ^note Namely, aging the girls up, deleting the established and loved fillies and replacing them with bland generic ones, and bring back the purple Pie-Man had a negative effect on the fanbase. Coupled with the poor availability of the toys due to distribution issues, the franchise started to collapse. The rights were then revoked and sold to Hasbro (which happened at the same time as Play-Along losing the rights to Care Bears to also Hasbro), who while initially gave the series excellent treatment, started to slide because the toys weren't moving ^note moving the cartoon series from Disney to Cartoon Network in Asia, Europe, and Oceania- who then proceeded to air them on CN's sister channel Boomerang instead- wasn't a smart move due to said channel being unavailable in several countries, although some speculated that like the Care Bears example above, the unexpected rise of another one of their franchises and its extremely vocal fandom was another cause of this. Additionally, Hasbro made an announcement that they will be purging all non-fruit-themed characters from the franchise, and proceeded to list the names of characters that have been purged — which angered fans of Ginger Snap, Angel Cake, and Apple Dumplin' (which was ironically used as a spokeslady for selling fresh apples back in 2003). Lastly, memories of the 2003 series were still fresh in the fandom's mind (DVD releases of the 2003 series dragged on until 2012, and are in fact still available on demand from several outlets), and they want their beloved characters, pets and fillies back. This had a net result of the rights being revoked at around the same time as the Care Bears'. The rights was then given to an upstart called Bridge Direct, which had limited distribution coverage, before the rights switched to Moose Toys in 2021 and then to TLS Toy a while later. And on a higher level, American Greetings sold the rights to Strawberry Shortcake to Iconix Brands in April 2015 (this was noticeable since all pictures posted to social networks around the time of the sale have the copyright of "SBSC" (Strawberry Shortcake Holdings, an Iconix company) instead of "TCFC" (Those Characters From Cleveland, an American Greetings company)), before Iconix sold its entertainment division, including the rights to the Strawberry Shortcake franchise, to WildBrain in 2017.
• Littlest Pet Shop was originally produced in the '90s by Kenner, then a subsidiary of Hasbro. Upon the toyline's 2005 relaunch, Hasbro itself began producing the line. In 2022, Hasbro announced it had loaned the rights to the franchise out to Basic Fun, with a planned 2023 relaunch date, as part of a broader outsourcing initiate by Hasbro... only for Basic Fun to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
• Sesame Workshop, then the Children's Television Workshop, historically licensed the production of toys based on Sesame Street and their other franchises to Fisher-Price. However, in the early 90s, they moved to Playskool. Later they switched to Tyco, before going back to Fisher-Price once their parent company Mattel acquired the company. They held onto the license for the entirety of the 2000s, before switching back to Playskool again, who retained the license until 2023, when Just Play obtained the rights.
• Popples were first made by Mattel in the 1980s. In 2001, Toymax got the rights to make them. Six years later, Playmates made their own line of Popples. In 2015, Spin Master made Popples plush dolls and figurines to tie in with the 2015 TV series.
• Puppy In My Pocket and the other In My Pocket series are a rather funny case. The toyline has always been owned by Morrison Entertainment Group (MEG), though when it came to distribution it was tossed around different companies like a game of hot potato over the years. First, Hasbro had the rights to distributing the figurines in the 90s, then it was passed to Jakks Pacific in the early 2000s after a rebrand that turned the figurines into more cartoonish-looking, cute pets with flocking. In 2010, when the show, Puppy in My Pocket: Adventures in Pocketville, started airing in Europe and eventually made its way to US networks in 2012, the rights were split between Giochi Preziosi, who distributed their own line among European countries (including the UK), Flair, who distributed a completely different style of figurines for the UK markets, and Jakks Pacific continued with its US distribution (the figurines being the same as Flair's), though the figurines based on the show didn't make it to US markets until 2013 due to an unfortunate delay. Then in 2015, Just Play acquired the rights to distributing the toys.
• Teddy Ruxpin was first made by Worlds of Wonder from 1985-1991. When they went bankrupt, Hasbro, under their Playskool banner, distributed the version that Worlds of Wonder had introduced three years prior (Hasbro were also the first choice to release the toy before WoW, but declined). Yes! Entertainment made a version of toy in 1998, followed by Backpack Toys and Wicked Cool Toys, who currently owns the rights.
• Cabbage Patch Kids were first made by Coleco, then by Mattel in the late '80s until 2000. It went into the hands of Play Along Toys during the 2000s, before being taken by Wicked Cool Toys.
• Sailor Moon toys were first made by Bandai in North America, which then switched hands with Irwin in 1997.
• The US toy license for Miraculous Ladybug started with Bandai, then went to Playmates Toys years later. Averted in Japan, where Bandai still makes the toys there (albeit later than the US, and at the same time the Playmates versions are being sold outside Japan).
• Marvel Legends was originated by the now-defunct ToyBiz, before Hasbro took over the license in 2007.
• Power Rangers toys were made by Bandai from 1993 to 2018, but Hasbro took over the license (and the rights to the franchise overall) when Power Rangers Beast Morphers began in 2019.
• Toys based on the Disney Princess and Frozen franchises were held by Mattel for several years, before Disney sold the licenses to Hasbro, with their starting in 2016. This article actually goes quite in depth on how they got their hands on the license, as well as some history involving the franchise.
  • It seems like Hasbro's time with the license didn't last, as the rights are going back to Mattel in 2023.
• Jurassic Park toys went over to Mattel after the contract with Hasbro expired. They first released a set of toys for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
• American Girl dolls were initially made by Germany-based Götz using existing molds from the company, but has since been owned and manufactured by Mattel when series creator Pleasant Rowland sold the line to the toy giant in 1998.
• The master toy license for SpongeBob SquarePants has switched several times: Mattel would own the rights at the height of the show's popularity in the 2000s. However, they did switch production to their Fisher-Price subsidiary around the time the movie was released. In 2009, Jakks Pacific acquired the rights to create SpongeBob toys in time for the tenth anniversary. Another manufacturer called Just Play would acquire the license in 2014 and also produced toys for the second movie. Alpha Toys was the master license for a few years in the early 2020s, and in addition to the standard plush toys and action figures, produced a set of vinyl figurines based on the several memes the show has spawned. Kidrobot and Super7 have also produced SpongeBob toys in recent years, with the latter creating high quality collectable figures.
  • As for the fast food tie-in meal toys, the show's toys in kids' meals sold in the United States were first sold at Wendy's in 2001. A set was released annually through Burger King from 2002 to 2011. The rights shifted to McDonald's from 2012 to 2015, but only two sets were released. Sonic got the rights from 2014 to 2016 before a 4-year hiatus happened. The rights went back to Wendy's in 2020, and then went back to Burger King in 2021.
• Pokémon toys were mostly distributed by Hasbro from 1998 to 2005, Jakks Pacific from 2006 to 2013, Tomy from 2013 to 2017, and Wicked Cool Toys (a division of Jazwares) since 2017. However, Tomy (under the Takara Tomy brand) and Bandai still distributes Pokémon toys in Japan.
• WWE toys were made by LJN Toys from 1984-1989, by Hasbro from 1990-1996, by Jakks Pacific from 1996-2009 and by Mattel since 2010.
• WCW toys were initially made by Galoob, then the license went to Original San Francisco Toymakers (who went on to produce the original ECW action figures), before the license settled with Toy Biz by WCW's end (though this hop is likely because Toy Biz's parent company Marvel Comics held the trademarks for several of then-WCW star Hulk Hogan's terminology at the time).
• Neopets toys were initially made by Thinkway Toys, then the license went to Jakks Pacific in 2008.
• The Simpsons figures started out with Mattel in the early-90s. In 1999, the license went to Playmates Toys, who released the hugely successful World of Springfield series. Playmates' license expired in 2004, and the rights briefly went to McFarlane Toys for a period before NECA released a set of figures for the 25th Anniversary in 2014-15. A smaller company known as Super7 began producing figures based on more niche characters for a time in the early 2020s. Jakks Pacific became the new master licensee in 2024.
• In 2022, Hasbro announced it had begun a new strategy of licensing its brands out to partners, which resulted in some major changes for its franchises. Hasbro licensed out the rights to Littlest Pet Shop to Basic Fun with a planned 2024 relaunch date, while Hasbro sold the construction toy rights for Transformers, previously under their long-dormant Kreo brand, to LEGO, who released the 10302 Optimus Prime set.
• The Rainbow Brite toy license originated with Mattel, who held it at the height of the franchise's popularity in the mid-1980s. After a long hiatus, in 1997 a small, obscure company called Up Up & Away gained the license and attempted to relaunch the franchise, but their attempt wasn't successful. In 2003, another obscure company named ToyPlay gained the license, releasing a range of toys that closely matched the original Mattel designs. In 2009, Playmates acquired the license and attempted another relaunch, which also was unsuccessful. Later on in the mid-to-late-2010s, the property's owner Hallmark released their own range of toys for the franchise, including plushies and themed Itty Bittys. In 2023, TLS Toy, a division of collectible company The Loyal Subjects, acquired the license.

By creator

• The current Atari company controls the pre-crash arcade game library from the original company, as well as all first-party games made for their consoles. The post-crash arcade library, which formed the nuclei of the spun-off arcade division of Atari, Inc. called Atari Games (which includes games such as Paperboy, Gauntlet and Primal Rage), was owned by Atari's former parent Warner Communications until they sold a majority interest in the company to Namco in 1984, who later sold their shares to a group of former employees the following year. Warner (who later merged with Time Inc. to form Time Warner, and is now known as WarnerMedia) retained a minority interest in the company until Midway Games purchased it wholesale in 1996. Midway continued to use the Atari Games brand name for their games until retiring it in favor of their own brand in 1999, with San Francisco Rush 2049 being the last-ever arcade game published to use the Atari name. As of 2009, all of the post-crash arcade games are back at Warners as a result of the studio purchasing Midway's assets. When Atari went bankrupt again in 2013, they sold off almost all their video games to different parties.
• Insomniac Games were Sony-exclusive for 18 years, before hopping to Microsoft for Sunset Overdrive, although Insomniac completely owns the right to the IP. However, Insomniac were purchased by Sony in 2019, with the rights to Sunset Overdrive being owned by its parent Sony.
• Zig-zagged with three LucasArts properties, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle. Although the remasters were developed and published by Double Fine, Lucasfilm still owns the IP and directly oversaw all remasters.
• Midway Games' in-house franchises, which include Mortal Kombat, Rampage and Spy Hunter, were transferred to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment as part of the aforementioned sale, in addition to the also-aforementioned post-crash Atari arcade library. The sale came with two of Midway's studios, their flagship Chicago studio and their Seattle studio (formerly Surreal Software). The former was reincorporated as NetherRealm Studios, while the latter was absorbed into Monolith Productions.
• Nyu Media was a subsidiary of Capcom for 11 years since 2011, and the company once published various doujin games from various Japanese doujin circles such as Edelweiss's Ether Vapor Remaster and Fairy Bloom Freesia, FLAT's and Tennen-Souzai's eXceed series, 773's Cherry Tree High series, and SITER SKAIN's The Tale of ALLTYNEX trilogy after a successful Kickstarter campaign. In 2022, Nyu Media eventually went out of business, and the rights to most of their backlog of games migrated to other publishers such as PLAYISM, X Seed Games, and Hatenko Doujin on July 1, however, a new publisher for the Cherry Tree High couldn't be found, thus the localized version of the series were delisted, with the entire eXceed series also getting delisted as its new publisher UPGRADE quickly dropped out of contract with Nyu Media.
• Rareware used to be partially owned by Nintendo, but the British developer found themselves bought wholesale by Microsoft in the early 2000s. Rare retained ownership of all games and characters not made specifically for the Donkey Kong franchise in the transition.
• Leisure Suit Larry began as a Sierra franchise, until it was sold to Codemasters (who picked up and released Box Office Bust) after Sierra's fall due to the higher-ups at Activision not being interested in the IP. The other Sierra franchises are retained by Activision. Sierra also dropped Ghostbusters: The Video Game in the process, only for Atari to acquire that game a few months later.
• The rights to Technos Japan's former IPs (Kunio-kun, Double Dragon, and The Combatribes) went to a small company named Million after Technos went out of business. They mostly acted as a licensing farm for their IPs, having their games developed and published by various companies (most notably Atlus during the early 2000s for the GBA versions of River City Ransom and Double Dragon) until they eventually settled on Arc System Works as their main publisher, who would go on to absorb Million in 2015.
• When the original THQ went bankrupt in 2013, they sold off many of their franchises.
  • Nordic Games acquired the THQ brand and most of their franchises, as the studio was rebranded THQ Nordic.
  • South Park: The Stick of Truth and the rights to any future South Park games were acquired by Ubisoft.
  • The video game rights to SpongeBob SquarePants and various other Nickelodeon properties went from THQ to Activision after THQ's bankruptcy. When Activision's contract expired in 2017, THQ Nordic took over publishing rights for most Nick-related titles, with Game Mill Entertainment occasionally publishing games since then as well.
  • The WWE game franchise moved to 2K Sports following THQ's bankruptcy.
• Valve Software's (retail) games used to be distributed by Sierra, until the release of The Orange Box, in which they are now distributed by EA Games. Valve handles their own digital distribution, though, and EA later became a competitor in that regard.
• Williams Electronics' video game division (Defender, Robotron: 2084 and Joust, among others) was traded to their then-subsidiary Midway Games in 1996 in exchange for Midway's pinball assets (which Williams specialized more on than video games) before spinning Midway off entirely two years later. Warner Bros. now owns Williams' video games as part of the Midway library.

By series

• Aleste was originally a Compile series before Compile would go under. 20 years later, M2 obtained the rights to the series and produced three new Aleste games: GG Aleste 3: Last Messiah, Aleste Branch, and Senjin Aleste. They also put out a Compilation Re-release featuring four of the Compile-era games and GGA3, and ported M.U.S.H.A. to the Nintendo Switch as part of the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack's Sega Genesis library (the rest of which was also ported by M2).
• While the Bayonetta games are developed by PlatinumGames, the first one was published by Sega. Once Sega cancelled production on Bayonetta 2, Nintendo offered to finance the game in their stead. Ever since, the franchise has remained a Nintendo exclusive, those Sega still owns the rights to the series, with Nintendo licensing use of the property.
• Command & Conquer went from Westwood Studios to EA Games, and some were not too happy about it. It is questionable if this one counts, however, since EA bought over Westwood and proceeded to screw with it, and when Command and Conquer 4 tanked, EA shut down Westwood but was reluctant to let the franchise go.
• Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon jumped from Sony Computer Entertainment to Vivendi Universal Games (later simply Vivendi Games), who later released the game through their subsidiary Sierra. The rights then went to Activision after the company was merged with Vivendi Games to form Activision Blizzard. However, Sony never owned the rights to either franchise to begin with as the IP was completely owned by Universal Interactive before being fully owned by Universal's former parent Vivendi after the latter company was split from Universal, with Universal leaving its gaming and music division with Vivendi following financial-issues over mismanagement under the short-lived merger.
• The Cruis'n series was a Midway/Nintendo co-developed franchise for most of its history. After Midway's bankruptcy, however, the rights reverted to Nintendo wholesale (though Cruis'n Exotica is co-owned by Nintendo and Midway successor Warner Bros., due to featuring original characters created by Midway).
• Devil Engine was originally published by Dangen Entertainment and developed by Protoculture Games. However, due to controversies surrounding Dangen, including mistreatment of Protoculture Games's staff, the latter party cut ties with the former and now self-publish the digital editions of the game, with Poppy Works and Beep in charge of distributing the limited-print physical editions.
• Interesting example with the Far Cry series. The series started off with the first installment being made by Crytek Studios and Ubisoft with Crytek's proprietary CryEngine. However, after the first game, due to a deal with Electronic Arts, Crytek parted ways with Ubisoft and went on to make the Crysis series. Ubisoft kept the Far Cry trademark and continued the franchise, producing Far Cry 2 and the very popular Far Cry 3. The non-Crytek installments of the Far Cry series, as well as the Classic remake of the first game, are rendered in Ubisoft's own proprietary Dunia Engine.
• Infamously the case with Final Fantasy. While developed by Squaresoft (now Square Enix), the first six installments in the series were produced and released exclusively for Nintendo consoles, along with related spinoffs and gaiden games. However, when developing Final Fantasy VII, Squaresoft concluded that the CD-based technology that the PlayStation ran on benefitted the game much more than the cartridge-based technology of the Nintendo 64. The result was an acrimonious breakup between Nintendo and Squaresoft that lasted for several years, while every installment from VII until XII remained exclusive to Sony platforms. Then the series went Multiplatform with Final Fantasy XIII, likely due to the poor sales of the PlayStation 3 in North America compared to that of the Xbox 360. As of 2020, the first twelve games are all available on various platforms, with VII finally seeing a release on a Nintendo platform in 2019 via the Nintendo Switch, and Final Fantasy VII Remake only being a timed exclusive for the PlayStation 4, as opposed to a full one.
• Halo began development as an in-house Bungie property before the company was purchased by Microsoft, and remained in the hands of Microsoft's 343 Industries after Bungie parted ways with them.
• IO Interactive and their Hitman franchise was infamously put in a very precarious situation following the release of Hitman (2016), which was intended to be released episodically, with their first season being published by Square Enix. However, following season 1's release and during the production of season 2, IOI was dropped by Square Enix, the latter citing the game's financial underperformance as to why. IOI surprisingly managed to maintain the IP rights to Hitman during the split, and progress on the game continued under the wing of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, who allowed them to complete the game in exchange for publication rights and a revenue cut. Once the season 2 — abandoning the episodic release structure in favor of being a standalone title, Hitman 2 — was released to much greater financial success, IOI was in a much better position to release the final "season", Hitman 3 — and in turn the collective World of Assassination Trilogy — as a fully independent company.
• Hydro Thunder was developed and released by Midway. After Midway's bankruptcy, its sequel, Hydro Thunder Hurricane, went to indie studio Vector Unit and was an Xbox Live exclusive published by Microsoft Game Studios.
• Traveller's Tales’ LEGO games went through a handful of publishers early on before being entirely handled by parent company WB Games since 2013:
  • The first LEGO Star Wars was released under Eidos in collaboration with LucasArts. (Eidos would also later publish BIONICLE Heroes) LucasArts would take over publication full time with The Original Trilogy, which continued with The Complete Saga and The Clone Wars; LucasArts also published both LEGO Indiana Jones games in between those two games. After LucasArts was shuttered in 2013, WB Games published the next two installments, The Force Awakens and The Skywalker Saga.
  • LEGO Batman, LEGO Harry Potter, and LEGO The Lord of the Rings, which were already based on Warner Bros.-owned properties, were naturally published by WB Games from the get-go. WB also published handheld spin-off games based on existing LEGO playthemes.
  • LEGO Rock Band was also published by WB Games, as opposed to that series’ traditional publisher at the time, Electronic Arts, since the game is already a LEGO spin-off.
  • LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, being based on a Disney property, was published by Disney Interactive. After Disney left the videogame market directly in 2016, the next explicitly^*The LEGO Marvel games were published by WB Games and based on a Disney-owned company, though Disney usually tends to keep their logo branding off Marvel products; however, they were credited on WB’s LEGO Star Wars games Disney-themed LEGO game, LEGO The Incredibles, was published by WB Games.
  • LEGO City Undercover was published by Nintendo when it initially debuted as a Wii U exclusive in 2013, making it the last LEGO game to date to be published by someone other than WB Games. When the game was remastered and rereleased for 8th-gen consoles, Nintendo Switch and PC in 2017, it was published by, you guessed it, WB Games.
• Monster Hunter spent five years exclusive to Sony platforms before the development team chose to release Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) on the Wii, due to the high cost of developing games for the PlayStation 3 at the time. While Monster Hunter Portable 3rd would be released on the PlayStation Portable and receive a port for the aforementioned PS3, the next seven years of main series games were primarily released on the Nintendo 3DS^note Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate had a Wii U port as well, though the system's lack of popularity killed the possibility of future ports to the system. The official logline is that they simply wanted to reach a wider audience over the Play Station Vita, with fans assuming it actually concerned them butting heads with Sony over Portable 3rd^note the planned localization of the PS3 port had been vetoed by Sony of America due to their desire to have trophies implemented and Capcom's desire to get the US Ad-Hoc Network updated so the game would have online play, a very important feature in many Western countries due to the fanbase being more spread out than in the series' native Japan. As of Monster Hunter: World the series has gone Multiplatform.
• Muse Dash was originally published by X.D. Network, but is now self-published by hasuhasu, a subsidiary of the game's developer PeroPeroGames.
• The NBA Jam (along with its related spin-offs) was developed by Midway until Acclaim acquired the rights to the franchise, with Midway continuing to release NBA games under different names. After Acclaim's bankruptcy in 2004, the franchise reverted back to the NBA, who waited six years before licensing the property to EA.
• NFL Blitz was always a Midway franchise, but Blitz: The League got published without the National Football League banner due to EA's exclusive licensing agreement for their Madden NFL series. When Midway went bankrupt in 2009, EA bought the NFL Blitz franchise as well. Unlike the NBA Jam example above, though, Midway retained their NFL Blitz games already published and are thus now owned by Warner Bros.
• Ready 2 Rumble Boxing and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 were published by Midway, but Ready 2 Rumble: Revolution was published by Atari due to Midway's bankruptcy. Unlike the first two games, Revolution is a Continuity Reboot and therefore doesn't feature any of the franchise's original characters as Atari doesn't own them.
• The Sakura Wars series was originally co-developed by Sega and Red Entertainment. In 2017, Sega gained ownership of every Sakura Wars project co-produced with Red shortly after Sakura Wars (2019) began development.
• LucasArts published Sam & Max Hit the Road, but after a long-awaited sequel was unceremoniously canceled, Telltale Games (itself formed by former LucasArts alumni) took over the license for their own series, Sam & Max: Freelance Police. When Telltale closed, a group of former developers founded Skunkape Games to acquire the rights and develop remastered versions of the games.
• Them's Fightin' Herds originally had Humble Bundle as a publisher, but on December 1, 2021, Mane6 ended the partnership and self-published until January 20, 2022, where they were acquired by Modus Games.
• The TNA video games went from Midway Games to SouthPeak Games after Midway's bankruptcy.
• Another developer case is Tomb Raider, which after the bad results of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was shifted by publisher Eidos from Core Design to Crystal Dynamics, which remain with the series ever since.
• Twilight Syndrome was initially developed and published by Human Entertainment, but after the company's closure in 2000, ownership of the series was passed on to a subsidiary of Spike Chunsoft which was largely staffed by former HUMAN employees. Coincidentally, out of the sparse number of official releases for the series, Kinjirareta Toshi Densetsu is the only game to have been released for the Nintendo DS rather than the PlayStation.
• The Ultimate Fighting Championship video games were first published by Crave Entertainment, then picked up by TDK Mediactive, then Take-Two Interactive, then THQ, and finally EA.
• Wolfenstein was originally created by Muse Software, who developed Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. After Muse Software was shut down in 1987, the rights to the series were purchased by id Software, who developed Wolfenstein 3-D. Later games in the series were developed by Gray Matter Interactive and Raven Software, but still published by id, with Activision being its distributor. After id was acquired by ZeniMax Media in 2009, Bethesda Softworks took over as publisher and MachineGames as developer.
• Monolith Soft was formed by former Square Enix employees who had worked on Xenogears, and was first owned by Namco. Under Namco, Monolith Soft produced the Xenosaga trilogy, but the low sales of the game left Namco more restrictive of the Monolith Soft's future endeavors, while the developers were in a state of low morale. Enter Nintendo, who advised Namco to allow Monolith Soft more creative freedom, influencing Monolith Soft to separate from Namco and instead become a subsidiary of Nintendo, now developing games exclusively to their platforms, most notably the Xenoblade Chronicles series of games.