I am not at all one of those cyber-anarchist types who believes that all the creative content ever made should just flow freely online. I never used Napster (until it became a legitimate service, a precursor to Spotify); I refuse to use things like Project Free TV or BitTorrent. I think the people who make stuff should get revenue from it.
But I do find it frustrating that the PTB that own rights to things can just leave them in the closet. You hear of musicians getting into disputes with their record labels, and the label refusing to release their album or even let them keep the tapes. And the one that particularly frustrates me is when there’s a TV show I’d like to rewatch, or pass on to someone else, or they to me–and it’s just not available. Not on DVD, not on Netflix, not on Hulu, not on Amazon, not on iTunes. But if someone tries to put their copy up on YouTube, they can still get in trouble! Ugh.
Examples? Three that come to mind (though I know there have been many others over the years) all aired between 1999 and 2003:
Get Real, a one-season FOX show, featuring the first appearances of both Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway;
Street Time, a superb crime drama starring Rob Morrow and Scott Cohen that ran on Showtime for two seasons;
The third and final season of Once and Again, a family drama from the producers of *thirtysomething *and My So-Called Life, starring Sela Ward, Billy Campbell, and Evan Rachel Wood.
It seems especially twisted somehow in that last case that the first two seasons *are *available on DVD. Way to leave us hanging, guys.
I agree to a certain extent, but how do you define something becoming unavailable. Disney likes to release it’s classic films on a schedule that increases demand. Should they be required to have them always available? I think they actually are now since they sell the recordings, but does something have to be available online? Does it have to be affordable? Copyright law gives too much protection for too long in my opinion, but working out the details won’t be easy.
I agree there ought the be someway to make stuff available legally. There are shows and movies I would watch, IF I could get a legal copy. Note to rights holders: I don’t mind paying!
One example is Ready Steady Go, a British rock TV show from 1963-66. I heard about it from the recent PBS special on the Dave Clark Five. Apparently, the studios were going to erase all the tapes that held the episodes, so Dave Clark bought all the tapes. He said he wasn’t doing it to make money, but he was going to save them until the interest came back, and people would want to see them again. Well, Dave, it’s been 50 years. Ya gonna release them any time soon?
I understand the frustration, but if someone owns something, how can they be compelled to share it? We’d end up with situations where the owner suffered financial loss in providing it, but had no choice not to.
In the case of books, I believe that publishers are compelled to grant copies to the Library of Congress, gratis. So, at least for congress members, you can check out everything ever written in the English language. Should the Library start to make the same condition for visual and aural works, I believe the OP’s desire would be met (to at least a minor extent).
We need to figure out a digital mechanism for libraries to function that isn’t just “free stuff!”
I don’t mean to speak for the OP, but this is a different case IMO. You may not be able to buy a new copy of Disney whatever at the moment, but you can go on Amazon or Ebay and get a used copy on DVD or VHS. They’ve been “released into the wild” so to speak. I think the OP is talking about things that were never released in a buy-able way (e.g. TV shows never put on tape/DVD).
I do sympathize with this point of view, but I feel like making some sort-of-devil’s-advocatey points:
This is very much both a “first world problem” and a “twenty-first century problem.” Younger Me would have been so astounded at how many creative works are readily available that it would seem ridiculous to complain about the few that aren’t. There’s already way, way more content at my fingertips than I could absorb in a lifetime. Try time-traveling back to the 70s or 80s and complaining to the people then that you don’t have any way of watching an obscure show that aired over a decade earlier.
On the other hand, in a world where everything’s readily available, you eliminate the thrill of finally getting to see/hear/read something you’ve been hearing about for years without being able to get your hands on a copy.
And, just because you find something frustrating doesn’t mean there’s necessarily anything wrong with it. I may be frustrated that that cute girl won’t go out with me, but that doesn’t mean an injustice is being perpetrated.
If the cost of distribution is greater than the revenue they’d make from releasing an obscure old show then they can’t both make it available and get profit from their property
What distribution? Make a downloadable file of the movie, book, whatever and you have no cost for storage, manufacture, shipping, employees to do all that, etc.
I’ve actually thought about this issue and come up with something I think might be a rough proposal.
In the music industry, we already have an established concept of mechanical royalties that apply to things like radio stations playing music. These are handled through a group that collects the royalties on behalf of many musicians and then pays it out to the individuals periodically.
So… let’s take that concept and extend it a little bit. Intellectual property (IP) is available by default, with mandatory royalties due for the use/sale of such material. The default availability can be limited in an opt-out manner: If you (the IP owner) are producing a work for current consumption, then you can prevent others from using the IP. If you (the IP owner) have “good cause” (insert lots of legalese that will satisfy Disney) for not making material available, then you can prevent others from using the IP. But any restriction on use requires some affirmative action by the IP holder. If they do not take that action, then use is allowed by default, and a default royalty will be paid to the IP holder to compensate them.
This system might not change much in practice because Disney, Fox and the like have plenty of lawyers to opt out. However, providing a sort of clearing house approach for using existing IP would be so much easier than the current system that requires individual licensing of everything.
Well, we already have such compulsions built into the system in the form of copyright expiration. Creative works, like inventions, are considered to be something that gives positive benefits to society as a whole, your reward for creating them is exclusive rights for a fair period of time.
The problem is that this period of time keeps getting extended, to the point where it’s not unthinkable to question if anything will ever enter public domain again on its own.
Bring those timeframes back down, and this discussion largely goes away.
That’s what Lawrence Lessig said – quoting the US Constitution – but the Supreme Court didn’t agree. Copyrights don’t expire anymore, ever since Disney got their way, and the Supreme Court has ruled that they can keep this shit up forever.
Another consideration is that determining the rights holder isn’t that simple.
For a multimedia/multi-artist project like a T.V. show or film there may be multiple payouts required- music licensing, actors’ residuals- and the accounting gets very tricky. The accounting headache alone can make it not worthwhile- and if it’s not the headache that is the disincentive, it could just be the cost that is a disincentive.
Example: the 90s MTV sketch comedy show The State.
For the run of the show, they had special music licensing deals. Any songs currently getting played on MTV could be used in the show at cut rates. These original deals never contemplated a home video release. To release the show on DVD, they’d have had to catalogue every single song used during the run of the show and then they’d have to renegotiate a deal to use the songs for the DVD release. Since all the songs originally used were big hits by popular acts, clearing the songs for DVD release would have been extremely expensive.
The alternative was to take all the songs out of the show and replace them with cheaper songs. This option is expensive too, and labor intensive. Ultimately, they decided there was enough interest in the series that they’d be able to make money so they put in the time and work to remove the original songs and find suitable replacements. For many older T.V. series, the interest from fans might not be deemed sufficient to cover the expense.
Newer T.V. series and films anticipate consumer demand and the original contracts and licensing agreements address online streaming, DVD/Bluray, cloud libraries up front.
I’ve felt for a long time that there should be a “use it or lose it” provision to copyright. The whole point of copyright was supposed to be that it encouraged the distribution of works; not to enable people to buy the rights and sit on them. If copyright is hampering the distribution of artistic works then it isn’t performing its designed function.
Isn’t that like arguing that hitting yourself on the head with a hammer is a good idea because it feels so great when you stop? And what makes you assume that whatever you’ve been hearing about will ever be available?