Y2K Falcon

There seem to be lots of discussions about DVD releases "ruined" by changes in the music from when an episode originally aired to when it was released on DVD. An example of this was a Quantum Leap season set recently released that had folks up in arms about a music change on a Ray Charles song (conjecture that the owners of the songs were getting a little greedy with the success of the film based on his life).

Shows with music montages at the end of an episode, the way they do on The O.C. and the way they did on Joan of Arcadia are probably ok since they often used lesser known/niche artists, often that I had never heard of. I'm assuming that the bands that appear on such shows at "prom", etc., sign waivers and such?

I'm more concerned about shows like My Name is Earl, who uses several widely known songs like last week's episode. Sure, they could probably run another song instead of "Bust a Move", but things wouldn't be the same without the "Monsters of Rock" reference and the subsequent playing of Warrant's "Cherry Pie". Same goes for last night's Las Vegas, where Styx's "Come Sail Away" was integral, as well as "Cat Scratch Fever".

Tangential to this are product placement things like The Office's use of Chili's as a backdrop, including a couple weeks ago where the "I want my Baby Back Ribs" song was sung during the show (followed by a commercial break with a Chili's commercial).

Can we expect edits when season sets for shows like this are released? Maybe someone around here is more in "the biz" and knows whether show producers are taking better care at these sorts of things. Sure, I doubt the makers of The Cosby Show was thinking that a series release would be highly sought after. But I'd like to think they are being more proactive about that now.

Comments?

calhoun07

I really can't answer your question directly, but I do know that studio execs look at new shows now with the question if they would be DVD worthy later on. I read one reason Prison Break has made it this far is because Fox feels it will be a show that people will want on DVD, a show that people will want to own and watch all at once. (Though that didn't seem to help Arrested Development!) As for the contracts going in, I do wonder myself as well. I would hate for something like My Name is Earl to be held up in limbo for a season set release because of music rights.

Jackskeleton

I would say that any new show these days is getting the music rights and back end legal release paper work done ahead of time when the papers are being signed.

My Name is Earl for example originally had Janes Addiction - Been caught stealing in the pilot after Earl is introduced and robs the content of the car. When it aired on television they had that changed to a generic sounding beat. So more than likely they couldn't secure those rights across the board and felt that it was better to change it then than down the road.

Prison Break has made it this far because it gets good ratings. Even in the 8pm monday slot it is getting better ratings than both AD and KC together in that slot. This is why they bumped the order up from 13 to 22 episodes.

Jay G.

They played the Janes Addiction song when I watched the episode on TV.

Jackskeleton

Ooooh. ok. my bad. It was Beck - Loser that got cut. I remember playing both the pilot rip along with what was on the first airing and that one was replaced.

Jay G.

Where was that song originally used in the episode?

I agree that the cutting of that song before the episode first aired may be a good sign of home music rights negotiations, unless the song was too expensive to use for even first broadcast.

With the explosion of DVD box sets, it's probably a good guess that most current TV shows are negotiating music rights for eventual home video release. However, it's a fairly new development, so plenty of DVD season sets may still suffer.

As for product placement, I don't see why companies like Chili's wouldn't like more free advertising.

DVDude!

I would hope that they are ensuring that the music remains intact if/when released on DVD. From what I've read, the whole debacle is the result of semantics. For example, the VHS releases of select Quantum Leap episodes had no music replacement. However, that is video and the RIAA is arguing that DVDs are not video. It's fucking inane and one more reason that I haven't purchased a CD in years. Greedy bastards.

That said, I will return my unopened R1 season 2 set of Quantum Leap to a B&M just after Christmas and will purchase the R2 set which has no music replaced. Apparently the powers that be across the pond don't condone the stupidity of the RIAA.

gatoinfeliz

There are cases which involve the idiot studios pulling out certain episodes because they couldn't secure the rights to the music. One I can think of was the first season of Profiler. I think the episode they didn't include in the DVD was episode 4 called "I'll Be Watching You". A&E said that they couldn't secure the rights to the Police song "Every Breath You Take" so they decided to not include this episode on the DVD. Since the whole episode involved the song, it would have been pointless for them to replace it with another.

dhmac

As gatoinfeliz's example illustrates, the essential problem is forms of video that don't exist when the song rights were originally secured for a show. So for shows that were made before videocassette existed, these rights didn't exist for that format and either had to be renegotiated or have the music replaced. Same for shows made before DVD existed, and so on for any future forms of video formats or distribution.

Of course, I've never understood why shows don't just get a close sound-alike band and re-record a particular song in such "rights cases" because the way the licensing rules work, no one can prevent anyone from covering a song as long as they pay royalties under the compulsory license law, if the owners of the original version are being too greedy.

Jay G.

The Compulsory Mechanical License only applies to the rights to re-record a song onto a record or other audio format. Placing a song in a movie falls under a Synchronization License, which doesn't have a compulsary clause.
http://www.legaljungleguide.com/reso...ongwriting.htm

In the commentary for the TV show "Sledge Hammer," creator Alan Spencer mentions that for the episode "All Shook Up," they couldn't get the rights to use any Elvis songs, even though they weren't using the Elvis recordings. They were forced to instead have the Elvis impersonators in the show sing some "Elvis-ish" improv.
http://www.sledgehammeronline.com/episode7.htm