Artistic Integrity... Completely Gone?

[AndyC]

I had heard about this problem with WKRP. Really p**ses me off. It's just a cash grab. I agree that they need to pay to use the song in the first place, but once the episode is made, it should become something new in its own right. That's my opinion. Especially with something like WKRP, that only used bits and pieces of songs, usually in the background. It's not like buying the DVD is going to give anybody an intact copy of the song as a free bonus. It might give it a little exposure though, and that can't hurt.

It's my feeling that once the song is legally used, it should be considered part of a greater whole, and no longer a separate item. To use an artistic analogy, this situation seems like a paint company blocking the exhibition of a famous painting, because they want to be paid more for certain colours.

This is similar to the problem that has prevented so many good episodes of MST3K from making it to home video. They got the rights to use the cheesy old movies cheaply enough, but once they showed they could make something saleable out of it, the price went up.

Naturally, an entire movie is a different proposition from a few seconds of a song. Still, MST3K can be credited for bringing a fair bit of attention to films that might otherwise have been of little value to their owners. It's only because of the show's following that they can even consider charging more for the rights.

It just bugs me that we can be denied a great show because someone wants to be paid again for one of its components.

[ulthar]

I'm surprised the short bits of song in WKRP are not covered by "Fair Use."

And btw, AndyC, I agree 100% with your view.  Once it's bought and put into another work, it becomes part of THAT work (the shortened version of the song).  Maybe it would be a different matter if the makers of the DVD wanted to put complete song 'soundtracks' as bonuses on the disk, but man, iirc, those song clips were quite short.

[Eirik]

Hey congrats, ulthar!  Not your first though, right?  I thought I remembered you talking about having kids before.

80 hours while seven months pregnant??  Your wife's a trooper - what does she do??

[dean]

Yeah, AndyC that's what bugged me about the dvd I was talking about: after all, if you had gained the rights to use the song already, the original owners of said song shouldn't be allowed to say: ''well hey, lets get paid a second time, so unless you want to continue to use it, you have to pay us again''

It almost amounts to extortion, though through legal loopholes of course.

Once its been used once, legally, on a show/movie/whatever, it should be allowed to be used forever more, in a sense; no take backs.  Its just plain annoying...  I guess there are probably some legal arguments to dispute all this, and some perfectly good reasons for it, but it just makes little or no sense to me at all why someone who originally paid to use a song in a show cannot continue to use it on dvd/vhs copies.

[ulthar]

Thank-you.  Yes, this is our second; we have a two 1/2 year old daughter.

She is a pediatric resident at the hospital.  When she's 'on-call,' she works 30 hour shifts.  It's not uncommon to have two or three calls per week, plus regular (8-10) hour shifts the other days.  It's grueling, but she's almost done with her third year.

Taping Little House seemed the least I could do.  :)