Wiseguy, Sonny Steelgrave Saga...no Knights in White Satin on last episode of the saga. Totally ruined original mood. I was very disappointed. So much so that I even searched for a bootleg with the correct score (to no avail).

I can understand that not everyone wants to pay it, but on most shows the music is integral - I would pay $199.99 per season of Dawson's Creek in an instant if it included all the original music. I have not bought any of the current seasons sets because they are ruined in my mind. So I don't see why they couldn't release two versions of a show to cater for purists and non-purists. One with the original music and a high MSRP and one with replaced music and a regular MSRP.

My vote:
If the price would be too high with original music edit the expensive songs

I mean...if it is true that Roswell seasons would have an MSRP of $200 per season....no way in hell would I have bought them. But I gladly paid for the current prices. If it's an issue of just adding 10 or 20 more dollars to the MSRP, then sure, I'd prefer the original music. But if it's going to double or triple the cost I would have to pay to have them...in most cases, I would not be interested. On the other hand, there are certain shows in which music was a huge deal and are greatly harmed when the music is changed. This is relatively rare though and IMO probably only concerns about 10% of the tv shows out there, if that many. If shows are going to cost twice or three times as much, I would rather not pay that much and support the greedy song artists. IMO, if you've agreed for your song to be used in something, tv show or movie or whatever...then that song should be considered now part of that work and should not have to be renegotiated everytime a new format comes along. It's total bullshit if you ask me.

Quote: "if you've agreed for your song to be used in something, tv show or movie or whatever...then that song should be considered now part of that work and should not have to be renegotiated everytime a new format comes along. It's total bullshit if you ask me."

Thats how all tv shows are now. Otherwise shows like "One Tree Hill," "OC," "Smallville," and most other WBs shows would have all their music changed, which would basically rerun alot of the story lines for "one tree hill"

I bought Keen Eddie knowing the music had been changed. I would like to have the original music but I wanted this show on DVD. I am happywith my purchase. I will take the issue on a case by case basis. Sometimes it will mean a no sale. As someone else said first how much money would we be talking? $10 or $20 extra sure, $50 or $75 no way am I paying that much.

The piece that's missing from this is profit-sharing. If the agreement for use of the song gives the artist/owner a piece of the profits when the material is re-sold, that's one thing. But if the music is so important, why should its owners be shut out of future earnings?

Some of these DVD sets are making more money than the shows ever did when broadcast. The issue of who should profit isn't trivial.

RichC

No way in hell I'd buy the Wonder Years if the music was changed.

I'm sure I wouldn't notice the music changes in things like Leap and WKRP as I did watch the shows, but I don't really remember anything vividly.

Heck, I probably wouldn't even notice on Dawson's Creek.

The thing that would bug me the most is generic stock instrumentals.

I agree. I think the music industry is way too stalwart in insisting every little note to be paid for several times over.

Of course they should get paid for their work. Their albums and concerts are well worth the money but to demand such high payment for no work at all? Just the right to play their song on a TV show? I understand profit sharing but it would seem to me that most artists should be able to negotiate a reasonable fee for their artistry to be featured on a TV show. To demand such rights as to drive the price of the sets more than twice what they are is just ridiculous.

They need to be paid for the work they do but when they start demanding high payment for 5 second MIDI ringtones or mood music in a TV show that is ridiculous. It might be completely in their legal right but it sure pisses the fans off.

It's not a matter of the music owners being shut out of the earnings, but I and I'm sure many others are confounded as to why the negotiations for the use of a certain piece of music gets to the exorbitant level that the music is replaced or the show is not released at all. The significance of a piece of music and what it adds to a scene really serves as exposure for that music, increasing the general interest and sales of that artist's work.

I suppose that if the rights owner for this use is someone else other than the rights owner in relation to album sales would this come about.

whoa.... do we know for a fact that the root of all of TV music rights issues has to do with money?!

Is it possible that in some cases it is a matter of following the ownership trail? An artist who has passed away or group that no longer exists. The estates of some may be in a state of limbo, effectively preventing anyone from claiming ownership.

I was responding to the notion that music should become integrally part of a show, with no further recompense when the product is re-purposed down the line. I'm suggesting that could only work if the owner of the music is invested with some sort of perpetual profit-sharing deal. Otherwise, signing all future rights away would be just stupid.

Music rights are always complicated because there are so many entities involved. The publisher of the music; the owner of the recording; the artists or their estates and asignees; the performance-rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI).

As someone said upthread, only in the last few years could anyone have actually believed there was so much money to be made on home-video sales of TV series. Who knows; maybe in another ten or 20 years there will be some new, currently unimagined way to repurpose this material yet again, creating another windfall for rights owners smart enough not to sign their interests away.

RichC

The irony being that if they try to profit too much, they end up with zero because the music is replaced or the DVDs don't come out at all.

Personally, I'd rather take a token amount and have my music included than have the music replaced and not get anything. Heck, I'd even take nothing and have my music there than nothing and have my music replaced, especially in those instances where the music is really showcased in the episode.

And on the other side of the coin...

But you are neglecting one thing. Free advertising for said band/artist. What is that worth? So in essence the movie industry is paying the recording industry to advertise their property. How messed up is that?

No one buys a TV series based on the fact that one artist is featured(heard only), in a 1 minute shot out of a full season of shows. But one might go buy a cd of an aritst they heard in that episode.

So I think it is completely backwards, and think that once it is licensed for a show/movie etc. it should be a part of that work. Like mentioned above. It isn't like they are packing in a free soundtrack or mp3s. 95% of the time it isn't even a full track.

It definitely depends on what the change is. The Quantum Leap change drove me crazy but i didn't care that much about the change to Married with Children's theme song. The theme song is already on earlier sets and isn't even part of the show so its not a big deal. I think the music industry needs to learn that a reasonable amount of money is better than no money at all. It's like having a yard sale and pricing all of my junk at a million dollars each. Technically if i sold just one of my items i would be a millionaire. In reality, I will sell nothing and miss out on a couple of hundred dollars i could have made if i had priced everything at a reasonable price.

I wouldn't think the issue would be not paying any money at all to use the songs since the replacement music is going to cost something, as well. Generally speaking, it doesn't seem like when these issues come up that the studios are unwilling to pay anything, just that they are unwilling to pay exhorbitant fees.

If getting the proper music would actually increase the price of a DVD set as much as people have said here, then the owners of the songs would be getting significantly more than the actors/writers, etc. who did the bulk of the work to make the show what it was.

There's a difference between getting one's fair share and going overboard.

Wow! they didnt include that song on the dvd? I cant even imagine that,to this day i remember that episode from when it originally aired and the song right with it.I woulda been furious if i had bought the dvd and watched it thru to the end to find that out.

Put me on the list of people who will wait for them to put ALL the right songs in before the sets are released and hopefully one day i will get my Wonder Years on dvd the exact way i saw(and heard) it.

Most of the music on shows like "Wonder Years" or "WKRP" is by dead or retired artists who hardly need promotion. The writers and producers of these shows used the songs they used as a way to say something in a particular way. It wasn't wallpaper or background music; it was part of the script.

If the songs weren't important in context, there wouldn't be such an uproar over their absence.

What's "free advertising" worth? Depends on whether the product still exists, and if you're still in the business of selling it. If somebody wanted to use a song froma band I was in 30 years ago in their TV show, I'd prefer cash, thank you.

RichC

No Nights in White Satin, either.

The artists are rarely involved. The entities holding up music rights in virtually every case are music publishers, companies and people that have little to do with releasing CDs or promoting the artists. They buy and sell songs like real estate, and the bottom line is their driving force.

This is important to note. The entities holding up music rights don't care about promoting the artist in the same way that a label or an artist's agent does. They often have little to no affiliation with the artist. They just want to be paid for the song, and that's that.

This is rarely an issue. Ownership of a song is a simple matter of record. Finding out who owns the publishing rights--again, the main thing holding up DVDs when we discuss music rights--is as easy as going to the ASCAP web site and looking it up.

Again, this is rarely about the band/artist or the recording industry. It's about the music publishers. For example, in the case of Nights in White Satin, since that was cited earlier, the publishing rights to the song are owned by Essex Music and administered in the United States by The Richmond Organization. Ever heard of them? It's unlikely that you have. And neither has anything to do with the Moody Blues or their catalog label, Universal Music Group, yet those publishing groups are what held up (or demanded too much money by the DVD producers' estimation) the use of the song on the Wiseguy DVD.

This is also important to note. Clearing one episode of WKRP, for example, might take negotiating with four or five different music publishers because of the amount of songs in any given episode. Multiply that by a season, and you're talking about dozens of deals. All it takes is one or two music publishers to play hardball to ruin it for the whole season. They each want their share of the pie. Then you have a case like Married...With Children, in which the studio is negotiating for the use of a theme song for every episode of every season. The music publisher sees dollar signs and little else. To them, again like real estate, the song has a certain value and making cut-rate deals weakens the worth of the song to them. There is no one clearing house to go through to negotiate music rights. Each song has its own story.

It was supposed to be replaced on season 3 and on for the season sets (haven't gotten season 3 yet to verify). They setup a chapter stop right after the intro so you can jump past the new song if you don't want to watch the intro. I read that the amount being asked to keep the song was enough of a joke that they may have had to double the price of the boxset to keep it. I would rather not pay that much just to keep one song.