Editing SPECTRE (section)

==Copyright issues==
{{Main|Thunderball (novel)#Writing and copyright|l1=Rights controversy of Thunderball}}
{{More citations needed section|date=May 2015}}
SPECTRE and its characters were at the centre of long-standing litigation between Kevin McClory and Ian Fleming over the film rights to ''Thunderball'' and the ownership of the organisation and its characters. In 1963, Fleming settled out of court with McClory, giving him the film rights to ''Thunderball;'' the literary rights stayed with Fleming and thus allowed continuation author e to use SPECTRE in a number of his novels.

In 1963, EON Productions producers Albert R. Broccoli and [[Harry Saltzman]] made an agreement with McClory to adapt the novel into the fourth James Bond film, also stipulating that McClory would not be allowed to make further adaptations of ''Thunderball'' for at least ten years after the release. Although SPECTRE and Blofeld were used in a number of films before and after ''Thunderball'', the issue over the copyright of ''Thunderball'' prevented SPECTRE and Blofeld from becoming the main villains in 1977's ''The Spy Who Loved Me''. In 1983, McClory released a film based on his Bond rights entitled ''Never Say Never Again''.

In 1998, [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer|MGM]]/[[United Artists|UA]] took legal action against [[Sony Pictures|Sony]] and McClory in the United States to prevent ''Warhead 2000 AD'' from going into production.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180703-sean-connery-co-wrote-a-bond-film-that-was-never-made|title=Sean Connery co-wrote a Bond film that was never made|first=Nicholas|last=Barber|website=www.bbc.com}}</ref> MGM/UA abandoned the claim after settling with Sony. McClory's Bond rights, including his rights in SPECTRE, were unaffected.

On 15 November 2013, MGM and the McClory estate announced that they had formally settled the issue with [[Danjaq, LLC]] and MGM had acquired the full copyright to the characters and concepts of Blofeld and SPECTRE.<ref>{{cite web|last=Vejvoda|first=Jim|title=MGM, Danjaq Settle James Bond Rights Dispute With McClory Estate |url=http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/11/16/mgm-danjaq-settle-james-bond-rights-dispute-with-mcclory-estate|website=IGN|date=16 November 2013 |access-date=16 November 2013}}</ref> Having lost its mantle of acronym, now simply called Spectre, the organisation and Blofeld were the main antagonists in the first Bond film released after the settlement, ''Spectre''.<ref name="econ acroym">{{cite news|title=Would the world be a better place if James Bond had never existed?|url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/10/new-film-spectre|access-date=5 November 2015|newspaper=[[The Economist]]|date=28 October 2015}}</ref><ref name="EON acronym">{{cite web|title=Synopsis|url=http://www.007.com/spectre/|publisher=[[EON Productions]]|access-date=5 November 2015}}</ref>