[Coco] Republishing Magazines

Gene Heskett gene.heskett at verizon.net
Sun Dec 28 15:39:45 EST 2003


On Sunday 28 December 2003 13:27, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
>At 10:10 AM 12/28/03 -0800, Neil Morrison wrote:
>>> ..."Work for hire", which is done for the person paying, and
>>> owned
>>
>>by them
>>
>>> when the work is submitted; all rights are transferred to the
>>
>>paying
>>
>>> customer, and the original creator relinquishes everything,
>>
>>including a
>>
>>> future stake and all credit. Until the strikes of the early
>>> 1970s,
>>
>>much
>>
>>> movie music was done under these terms.
>>
>>IIRC, this has caused a problem with the re-broadcasts of "WKRP"
>> and as a result they've had to change all the music played on the
>> show, and many of the related jokes are now rendered pointless.
>> Seems dumb to me.
>
>That's yet a different issue. :)
>
>I believe the problem is not the re-broadcast but rather the
> re-release of WKRP (and many other shows) on DVD.
>
>The background music was contracted for broadcast, not for
> commercial release. Those contracts must be renegotiated, and
> because it is a public release, royalties are paid per copy. That
> adds up and, unfortunately, the on-the-cheap producers of the
> original shows did not incorporate the idea of future release into
> their  contracts, nor are they willing to pony up the cash to pay
> those royalties now.
>
>The dumb part is the cheapskate producers who want to get huge
> profits from re-release on DVD (notice it's been held for DVD and
> not VHS, which was more expensive and harder to market). But they
> want to get rich on the backs of the creative contributors. I'm not
> sure what the residual situation is for the actors, but musicians
> and composers have had a very long and bad experience with the
> movie and television cutthroats, and have developed -- as you see
> here -- a very effective coping mechanism.
>
>Dennis

In other words, the DVD's should languish in the bins at Wally World, 
they are not accurate reproductions, but knockoffs.

Personally I found the show to be so inane and stupid it was not 
toleratable within my hearing.  But thats just my sense of humor.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III at 500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP at 1400mhz  512M
99.22% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com attornies please note, additions to this message
by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.




More information about the Coco mailing list