3 ms·

Music has been a cash cow that seems to just keep on giving. I mean how much money does the Beatles catalogue make and will likely continue to make? As a consu

by jmyeet 5y ago

Music has been a cash cow that seems to just keep on giving. I mean how much money does the Beatles catalogue make and will likely continue to make? As a consumer, this can be pretty annoying. Often TF shows (as one example) might only get music rights for the inital broadcast and not reruns. I've come across a few shows that are never released on DVD because th emusic rights would just be prohibitively expensive to do that. But what I'll be interested to see is in the coming years if Western governments will "allow" such catalogues to enter the public domain. They should but we're all familiar with the repeated and unjustified mouse-related copyright extensions. I mean up until Happy Birthday entered the public domain (which came down to a century-old song book and a court case [1]) it was stil generating ~$1m/year in royalties. Aren't we well beyond the point where this sort of thing is justifiable? [1]: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/old-songbook-could-put-happy-birthday-in-public-domain/ https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/old-songbook-could...

andybak 5y ago
TF?
- everyone 5y ago
  TF commonly stand for "Team Fortress" a popular Quake mod.
- password4321 5y ago
  Probably TV.
  - andybak 5y ago
    Ah, of course.
- danmur 5y ago
  Telefission
squeaky-clean 5y ago
Similarly there are some video games you can't buy anymore because music rights have expired. It's more common in racing games. The Forza series tends to go on sale dirt cheap before the music license rights expire and then can never be purchased legally again. You can still install and play the game with that music, but no new sales. https://mspoweruser.com/forza-horizon-3-no-longer-available-buy-september/ https://mspoweruser.com/forza-horizon-3-no-longer-available-...
kingcharles 5y ago
As someone who was once a producer on a movie, the movie was cut with an awesome soundtrack, but when the movie was sold the buyers realized they couldn't afford to distribute it because the soundtrack was too awesomely expensive and so all the music got replaced with lame shit. I wonder how often music is downgraded in movies because a good royalty deal can't be negotiated for certain tracks?
- kevbin 5y ago
  The original version of Donnie Darko was “downgraded” from INXS to Echo and The Bunnymen, among others. The director’s cut replaced or repurposed several tracks. The original was better, a little too much tinkering, I think.
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    Ooo, and I remember that the movie of 1984 had a much better soundtrack on its original release on VHS, which I have somewhere... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(For_the_Love_of_Big_Brother) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(For_the_Love_of_Big_Brot... Seems more of a creative dispute than royalty issue, though.
ryanmcbride 5y ago
Yeah this happened with Daria. MTV had the broadcast rights to a whole bunch of music, and was able to use it all throughout the run of Daria, but when they released the VHS tapes of the movies and the DVDs of the series, all the licensed music was replaced with similar but legally distinct music, which really makes the show feel weird. This version was used for the streaming release as well. There was a small movement a few years back that digitally removed the royalty free music and re-added the original music, but that means that depending on how loud the royalty free music was, the audio quality of the characters' dialogue can get really bad. I still liked it better than the royalty free version though, because Daria really is a time capsule into the late 90s and without the original music it loses a lot of that power. As far as I've been able to find, there's no way to watch the original episodes. If anyone happened to tape every episode, they didn't upload them anywhere. I'd kill for an official release with the original audio.
ziml77 5y ago
I always found it insane when the feature that allowed you to export songs from Rock Band 1 to 2 and then 2 to 3 required Harmonix to get new licenses. Was very annoying losing songs because of license bullshit.

by jmyeet 5y ago

andybak 5y ago

TF?

everyone 5y ago
TF commonly stand for "Team Fortress" a popular Quake mod.
password4321 5y ago
Probably TV.
- andybak 5y ago
  Ah, of course.
danmur 5y ago
Telefission

squeaky-clean 5y ago

Similarly there are some video games you can't buy anymore because music rights have expired. It's more common in racing games. The Forza series tends to go on sale dirt cheap before the music license rights expire and then can never be purchased legally again. You can still install and play the game with that music, but no new sales. https://mspoweruser.com/forza-horizon-3-no-longer-available-buy-september/ https://mspoweruser.com/forza-horizon-3-no-longer-available-...

kingcharles 5y ago

As someone who was once a producer on a movie, the movie was cut with an awesome soundtrack, but when the movie was sold the buyers realized they couldn't afford to distribute it because the soundtrack was too awesomely expensive and so all the music got replaced with lame shit. I wonder how often music is downgraded in movies because a good royalty deal can't be negotiated for certain tracks?

kevbin 5y ago
The original version of Donnie Darko was “downgraded” from INXS to Echo and The Bunnymen, among others. The director’s cut replaced or repurposed several tracks. The original was better, a little too much tinkering, I think.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  Ooo, and I remember that the movie of 1984 had a much better soundtrack on its original release on VHS, which I have somewhere... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(For_the_Love_of_Big_Brother) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(For_the_Love_of_Big_Brot... Seems more of a creative dispute than royalty issue, though.

ryanmcbride 5y ago

Yeah this happened with Daria. MTV had the broadcast rights to a whole bunch of music, and was able to use it all throughout the run of Daria, but when they released the VHS tapes of the movies and the DVDs of the series, all the licensed music was replaced with similar but legally distinct music, which really makes the show feel weird. This version was used for the streaming release as well. There was a small movement a few years back that digitally removed the royalty free music and re-added the original music, but that means that depending on how loud the royalty free music was, the audio quality of the characters' dialogue can get really bad. I still liked it better than the royalty free version though, because Daria really is a time capsule into the late 90s and without the original music it loses a lot of that power. As far as I've been able to find, there's no way to watch the original episodes. If anyone happened to tape every episode, they didn't upload them anywhere. I'd kill for an official release with the original audio.

ziml77 5y ago

I always found it insane when the feature that allowed you to export songs from Rock Band 1 to 2 and then 2 to 3 required Harmonix to get new licenses. Was very annoying losing songs because of license bullshit.