Editing Three Investigators (section)

===Initial position===
The series was invented by American writer Robert Arthur in the US in 1964. Arthur sold the international exploitation rights to the publisher Random House, however he retained the copyright. The contract included the rights to publish books, films, comics and mechanical [[sound reproduction]]. Since there was no significant audio book market at that time, it is legally not clearly determinable and therefore doubtful whether this "mechanical sound reproduction" describes the medium of audio books or radio plays as they exist now. The Franckh-Kosmos publisher of Random House acquired the German-speaking exploitation rights in 1968. The label [[Europa (record label)|EUROPA]] received the rights to the audio version of the series as part of the sublicense partners of the Kosmos Verlag.

After Robert Arthur's death in 1969, the copyrights were given to the [[University of Michigan]]. In his will, Arthur declared that "all rights, legal titles and stakes, [he] owned by the time of [his] death, concerning all published books, short stories, plays or unpublished manuscripts, including all issued copyright claims, just as all rights for license fees and subsidiary rights, as it is specified in [his] contracts with publishers" were to be given to the University of Michigan. 

Since then Random House had been paying [[Royalty payment|royalties]] to the university, but they stopped doing so as of 1992, because it was not clear whether the University of Michigan still had a legal entitlement. The [[American copyright law]] said that literature that received a copyright before 1977 had a safeguard clause that made sure that all licenses automatically returned to the author or his heirs after 28 years. As a result of that, Random House and Arthur's heirs, his children Elizabeth Ann Arthur and Robert Andrew Arthur, signed a contract for the rights of use of the volumes of Arthur and the further usage of the characters, under the condition that the 10 books were to be brought back onto the American market.

After the series was discontinued in the US in 1991, Kosmos Verlag sought the rights to continue the series in Germany with German authors, and in 1994 signed a corresponding contract with Random House without the consent of Arthur's heirs.

In 2002, Random House returned the rights of the ten volumes to Robert Arthur's heirs after the publisher failed to comply with the agreed republications of the works. In 1999, however, Kosmos-Verlag had already registered the word mark {{ill|Die Drei ???|de|Die drei %3F%3F%3F|vertical-align=sup}} throughout Germany and by 2003 throughout Europe as well as a European trademark for audio carriers and printed products.

Negotiations between Kosmos Verlag and the heirs on a new usage rights agreement failed because Kosmos relied on its trademark registration and ongoing agreements with Random House. Furthermore, Kosmos doubted that Arthur's heirs were the right holders since according to Arthur's will, all rights were to be transferred to the University of Michigan. At the end of 2004, Random House and Kosmos signed an extensive agreement to transfer all rights to the other American novels not written by Arthur to Kosmos Verlag.