5 ms·

Muppet babies will never be available on streaming due to studio copyright claim

40 points by ajdude 3y ago

hnbad 3y ago
> The lack of camaraderie among studios in the industry today makes it difficult for Muppet Babies to find a streaming platform home due to copyright royalties and trademark concerns. Or in other words, they now have to follow the same rules as creators outside this clique and have to pay royalties if they want to use copyrighted material in their work. EDIT: If you haven't read the article and think I'm being crass: the problem isn't that there are disputes over who holds the copyright. The problem is that the show liberally used live action clips that were in the public domain as well as live action clips that still aren't. And they only got away with it because at the times the people involved in the show were on good terms with the people involved with those movies. They could still release the show without those clips.
mixdup 3y ago
There is a similar situation with The Adventures of Pete & Pete from Nickelodeon that is preventing it from being put on Paramount+. Paramount and (I think) Sony both claim some amount of ownership, and instead of hashing it out they've just canned the whole show. It goes back as far as when shows were released on DVD, the 1st and 2nd seasons were released on DVD, the 3rd was pressed and ready to go but never actually shipped
- ramesh31 3y ago
  >There is a similar situation with The Adventures of Pete & Pete from Nickelodeon that is preventing it from being put on Paramount+ The upside to things being stuck in permissions-purgatory is that it's usually all available in bootleg format on Youtube (albeit in terrible quality), as there's no one directly responsible to copyright strike it. The full series has been up there for a while.
- Klonoar 3y ago
  The Drew Carey Show suffers from an interesting similar-ish issue, due to music used throughout it. As a result it’s never gotten released past season 1 on DVD and a one-off compilation DVD. No streaming services.
  - wharvle 3y ago
    WKRP, Beavis and Butthead (obviously), even more-recent shows like Skins (UK) have had this problem. One of the major causes of the best version of certain things only being available for those sailing the high seas.
    - mixdup 3y ago
      Seems like Beavis and Butthead would be pretty easy to cut out the music video sections
      - wharvle 3y ago
        That’s how it’s been released, but that’s a huge part of the show.
        jauntywundrkind 3y ago
        I keep wondering when/if we'll see media that merely cites other work. Why embed Nirvana in your show? Just have the video embed something citing the work, and let the viewer and maybe their player go track down & integrate the work.
        mixdup 3y ago
        or even better, if I upload a video to YouTube and it includes a Nirvana song, and if YouTube has permission from Interscope to distribute Nirvana music by virtue of an explicit license or the fact that Interscope uploaded a bunch of Nirvana videos, since it's YouTube doing the distributing shouldn't their licenses cover all? Don't even bother technically under the hood digging up the licensed copy Obviously they don't, but they should
- mcphage 3y ago
  > the 1st and 2nd seasons were released on DVD, the 3rd was pressed and ready to go but never actually shipped The Muppet Show itself had a similar issue—the show was 5 seasons, but seasons 4 & 5 never made it to DVD. I had assumed that they were gone for good, but Disney+ actually released all 5 seasons. Maybe someday we'll also see the later versions of The Muppet Show, like "Muppets Tonight" or "the muppets.". But I'm not holding my breath.
tantalor 3y ago
Eventually it will be public domain
- Gare 3y ago
  If the copies survive
  - rjbwork 3y ago
    All 7 seasons are well seeded on the torrents. It's hard for media to become lost these days, but if you want to see a lot of it, you aren't going to do so legally under such a ludicrous IP regime.
    - mbork_pl 3y ago
      > It's hard for media to become lost these days Not exactly "these days", but not the early 1900s, either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes
      - kmeisthax 3y ago
        Cry Baby Lane was lost media for a decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Baby_Lane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Baby_Lane
      - crtasm 3y ago
        But well before everyone had enough data storage in their pocket to hold all those episodes and much more.
        mbork_pl 3y ago
        Also, before recording from tv (or streaming) was deliberately made difficult by nonsensical DRM...
        3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jjgreen 3y ago
Just as well I got the DVD boxed set then. Err...
i80and 3y ago
A healthy chunk of media from the 80s to the 2000s is hard to get released because of the copyright thicket caused by the shows sampling other media. It sucks, and I don't know what the answer is.
- MacsHeadroom 3y ago
  The answer is abolishing copyright. Not to save these shows. For other reasons. But saving these shows would be nice.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    Well, at the very least the answer would be softening copyright to the point where the kind of sampling that kind of media did is permissible again without clearing every single piece sampled. However that would effectively kill copyright because the only way those shows were able to do that was, in a way, what we now call "backroom deals".
  - _ph_ 3y ago
    I am not sure about abolishing, but it would already quite help if there was a clear, reasonably timed, copyright period. Like 50 years after publication.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - woleium 3y ago
    Let’s see what the outcome of the generative AI law suits are. I am hopeful, but not very.
  - danaris 3y ago
    That's very much throwing the baby out with the bathwater. No; a much better answer is mandatory licensing, with set, reasonable fees.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
munk-a 3y ago
As a result of these copyright prohibitions Muppet Babies is in much more danger of becoming lost media. A lot of the early film media we lost wasn't just the cinematic flops (though we did lose quite a lot of that) but instead films that may have been blockbusters in their time but were owned by very controlling studios. A classic example of this is 1917's Cleopatra which may have been the most expensive film ever shot.
- ta988 3y ago
  Same with software and products from really controlling industries or research from really controlling academia. We have lost a lot of human productions because of control, egos and misjudgements.
  - cogman10 3y ago
    What's fascinating to me is the ongoing "open" movements reverse engineering old executables to make code maintainable. Stuff like openra
    - ta988 3y ago
      Indeed, and I really hope we will get better disassemblers and code interpretation tools that can make that task much easier.
- compsciphd 3y ago
  All 8 seasons seem to be well seeded in torrent land.
LadyCailin 3y ago
Copyright ought to expire much much sooner than 70 years or whatever if a work is not available to reasonably (annd legally) obtain anymore. Copyrights are a balance between the public good, and allowing creators to make money from their creations, but as soon as they have obviously abandoned that, then no one is served by such an absurdly long copyright period. I suppose in this case, since it could perhaps be considered a derivative work, where the originals (Star Wars, for instance) are still available for viewing reasonably, it’s more complicated, but nonetheless this feels like a travesty, which benefits no one at all.
- noah_buddy 3y ago
  If no one can acquire a product legally and the copyright owners do not release (or worse, delete) the product, it seems like this wouldn’t actually change anything in those cases. The best you could hope for is contentious right holders poisoning the well for the other rights holders by releasing a copy.
DaOne256 3y ago
https://archive.ph/GGrdC https://archive.ph/GGrdC
teeray 3y ago
Consumers deeply do not care about these quibbles. If the media is popular enough they will just pirate it.
cowpig 3y ago
This article doesn't provide any detail about what claims are made, or who makes them. It doesn't even mention who owns copyright on the show. The one quote talks about how Jim Henson was well-liked... there is no mention of copyright in the quote.
joshspankit 3y ago
Hot take: IMO I’m willing to accept the loss (and it is huge) of access to media if people follow this, but I truly and deeply believe that anyone who wants to tightly control some intellectual or cultural “property” should put it in a plain cardboard box and file it in the darkest corner of the most inhospitable warehouse never to be seen from (or profited off of) again. At least then we could mourn properly before moving on and creating works freely without the chilling effects caused by the looming threat of being sued for accidentally making something similar.

40 points by ajdude 3y ago

> The lack of camaraderie among studios in the industry today makes it difficult for Muppet Babies to find a streaming platform home due to copyright royalties and trademark concerns. Or in other words, they now have to follow the same rules as creators outside this clique and have to pay royalties if they want to use copyrighted material in their work. EDIT: If you haven't read the article and think I'm being crass: the problem isn't that there are disputes over who holds the copyright. The problem is that the show liberally used live action clips that were in the public domain as well as live action clips that still aren't. And they only got away with it because at the times the people involved in the show were on good terms with the people involved with those movies. They could still release the show without those clips.

mixdup 3y ago

There is a similar situation with The Adventures of Pete & Pete from Nickelodeon that is preventing it from being put on Paramount+. Paramount and (I think) Sony both claim some amount of ownership, and instead of hashing it out they've just canned the whole show. It goes back as far as when shows were released on DVD, the 1st and 2nd seasons were released on DVD, the 3rd was pressed and ready to go but never actually shipped

ramesh31 3y ago
>There is a similar situation with The Adventures of Pete & Pete from Nickelodeon that is preventing it from being put on Paramount+ The upside to things being stuck in permissions-purgatory is that it's usually all available in bootleg format on Youtube (albeit in terrible quality), as there's no one directly responsible to copyright strike it. The full series has been up there for a while.
Klonoar 3y ago
The Drew Carey Show suffers from an interesting similar-ish issue, due to music used throughout it. As a result it’s never gotten released past season 1 on DVD and a one-off compilation DVD. No streaming services.
- wharvle 3y ago
  WKRP, Beavis and Butthead (obviously), even more-recent shows like Skins (UK) have had this problem. One of the major causes of the best version of certain things only being available for those sailing the high seas.
  - mixdup 3y ago
    Seems like Beavis and Butthead would be pretty easy to cut out the music video sections
    - wharvle 3y ago
      That’s how it’s been released, but that’s a huge part of the show.
      - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
        I keep wondering when/if we'll see media that merely cites other work. Why embed Nirvana in your show? Just have the video embed something citing the work, and let the viewer and maybe their player go track down & integrate the work.
        mixdup 3y ago
        or even better, if I upload a video to YouTube and it includes a Nirvana song, and if YouTube has permission from Interscope to distribute Nirvana music by virtue of an explicit license or the fact that Interscope uploaded a bunch of Nirvana videos, since it's YouTube doing the distributing shouldn't their licenses cover all? Don't even bother technically under the hood digging up the licensed copy Obviously they don't, but they should
mcphage 3y ago
> the 1st and 2nd seasons were released on DVD, the 3rd was pressed and ready to go but never actually shipped The Muppet Show itself had a similar issue—the show was 5 seasons, but seasons 4 & 5 never made it to DVD. I had assumed that they were gone for good, but Disney+ actually released all 5 seasons. Maybe someday we'll also see the later versions of The Muppet Show, like "Muppets Tonight" or "the muppets.". But I'm not holding my breath.

tantalor 3y ago

Eventually it will be public domain

Gare 3y ago
If the copies survive
- rjbwork 3y ago
  All 7 seasons are well seeded on the torrents. It's hard for media to become lost these days, but if you want to see a lot of it, you aren't going to do so legally under such a ludicrous IP regime.
  - mbork_pl 3y ago
    > It's hard for media to become lost these days Not exactly "these days", but not the early 1900s, either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes
    - kmeisthax 3y ago
      Cry Baby Lane was lost media for a decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Baby_Lane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Baby_Lane
    - crtasm 3y ago
      But well before everyone had enough data storage in their pocket to hold all those episodes and much more.
      - mbork_pl 3y ago
        Also, before recording from tv (or streaming) was deliberately made difficult by nonsensical DRM...
        3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jjgreen 3y ago

Just as well I got the DVD boxed set then. Err...

i80and 3y ago

A healthy chunk of media from the 80s to the 2000s is hard to get released because of the copyright thicket caused by the shows sampling other media. It sucks, and I don't know what the answer is.

MacsHeadroom 3y ago
The answer is abolishing copyright. Not to save these shows. For other reasons. But saving these shows would be nice.
- hnbad 3y ago
  Well, at the very least the answer would be softening copyright to the point where the kind of sampling that kind of media did is permissible again without clearing every single piece sampled. However that would effectively kill copyright because the only way those shows were able to do that was, in a way, what we now call "backroom deals".
- _ph_ 3y ago
  I am not sure about abolishing, but it would already quite help if there was a clear, reasonably timed, copyright period. Like 50 years after publication.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- woleium 3y ago
  Let’s see what the outcome of the generative AI law suits are. I am hopeful, but not very.
- danaris 3y ago
  That's very much throwing the baby out with the bathwater. No; a much better answer is mandatory licensing, with set, reasonable fees.
toomuchtodo 3y ago

munk-a 3y ago

As a result of these copyright prohibitions Muppet Babies is in much more danger of becoming lost media. A lot of the early film media we lost wasn't just the cinematic flops (though we did lose quite a lot of that) but instead films that may have been blockbusters in their time but were owned by very controlling studios. A classic example of this is 1917's Cleopatra which may have been the most expensive film ever shot.

ta988 3y ago
Same with software and products from really controlling industries or research from really controlling academia. We have lost a lot of human productions because of control, egos and misjudgements.
- cogman10 3y ago
  What's fascinating to me is the ongoing "open" movements reverse engineering old executables to make code maintainable. Stuff like openra
  - ta988 3y ago
    Indeed, and I really hope we will get better disassemblers and code interpretation tools that can make that task much easier.
compsciphd 3y ago
All 8 seasons seem to be well seeded in torrent land.

LadyCailin 3y ago

Copyright ought to expire much much sooner than 70 years or whatever if a work is not available to reasonably (annd legally) obtain anymore. Copyrights are a balance between the public good, and allowing creators to make money from their creations, but as soon as they have obviously abandoned that, then no one is served by such an absurdly long copyright period. I suppose in this case, since it could perhaps be considered a derivative work, where the originals (Star Wars, for instance) are still available for viewing reasonably, it’s more complicated, but nonetheless this feels like a travesty, which benefits no one at all.

noah_buddy 3y ago
If no one can acquire a product legally and the copyright owners do not release (or worse, delete) the product, it seems like this wouldn’t actually change anything in those cases. The best you could hope for is contentious right holders poisoning the well for the other rights holders by releasing a copy.

DaOne256 3y ago

https://archive.ph/GGrdC https://archive.ph/GGrdC

teeray 3y ago

Consumers deeply do not care about these quibbles. If the media is popular enough they will just pirate it.

cowpig 3y ago

This article doesn't provide any detail about what claims are made, or who makes them. It doesn't even mention who owns copyright on the show. The one quote talks about how Jim Henson was well-liked... there is no mention of copyright in the quote.

joshspankit 3y ago

Hot take: IMO I’m willing to accept the loss (and it is huge) of access to media if people follow this, but I truly and deeply believe that anyone who wants to tightly control some intellectual or cultural “property” should put it in a plain cardboard box and file it in the darkest corner of the most inhospitable warehouse never to be seen from (or profited off of) again. At least then we could mourn properly before moving on and creating works freely without the chilling effects caused by the looming threat of being sued for accidentally making something similar.