The tl;dr for the long article:<p>The company that owns the Sea-Monkeys trademark, Transcience, contracted with another company, Big Time Toys, to handle the &#x27;fishbowl&#x27; kits, marketing, and distribution. Transcience continued to provide the brine shrimp, which the company says are specially bred to handle the rigors of postal transport better than other brine shrimp.<p>Big Time Toys had the option to buy out Transcience completely for $10 million, with $5 million as a lump sum and the rest paid as a percentage of yearly profit.<p>In 2013, Big Time Toys stopped paying towards the $10 million, stopped buying the brine shrimp from Transcience (they switched to Chinese suppliers), and kept using the Sea-Monkeys name for their products.<p>Big Time Toys claims that the money they&#x27;ve paid Transcience for brine shrimp counts for the buyout, and that they now own Transcience (and its trademarks).