Broadcasters vs Producers on Content Integrity 173
mpawlo writes "I just did a quick write-up for Greplaw on an interesting pending law suit in Sweden. Two Swedish directors, Vilgot Sjoman and Anders Eriksson, are about to file a suit against Swedish broadcaster Tv 4. According to the author's rights or droit moral doctrine, the work may not be displayed or changed in a way degrading to the author or the author's work. Tv 4 has just changed its policy for commercial breaks. Breaks are now introduced during movies. The commercial breaks used to be placed between the end and start of a program.
The directors argue the breaks are degrading from an artistical point of view. They want to try the commercial breaks in court from a copyright perspective."
hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
graspee
Interesting.. (Score:3, Interesting)
This story made me think, could our producers sue Digital Cable for degrading the quality? (ask any time warner digital cable subscriber what 'digital picture' means, anyone with a clue will tell you it means 'lossy compression used to squeeeze in a bunch of extra channels)
Re:or for a more holistic view... (Score:4, Interesting)
graspee
Re:hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So in conclusion... (Score:3, Interesting)
This I don't get (Score:5, Interesting)
The article states:
If the protection the authors claim is grounded in European law, why are the London-based stations safe from it? Why aren't they bringing the case before the EU courts at once?
Apparently they think the EU courts wouldn't outlaw commercial breaks during movies, which are pretty normal. One Dutch station (SBS6) actually goes so far as to have an entire 30-minute program in between the first and second halves of a film... I *hate* that.
So it seems that Swedish courts are being stricter on interpretation of EU law than the rest of the EU. I doubt that's a good thing.
TV Shows on DVD? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish this could be done for DOGs (Score:3, Interesting)
Might finally get rid of those stupid things once and for all...
European v. US copyright laws (Score:5, Interesting)
IIRC, when Bergman's The Lie (abridged, but edited by Bergman from the Swedish version) played on US commercial TV some thirty years ago, it was broadcast without commercial breaks -- because it was in Bergman's contract.
As a former player/writer in TV/movies, I can assure you that for the last twenty years in the US, the writers/artists have had no rights about `artistical' matters; the producers now expect the TV/Cable/International revenues to cover their production costs, and they have the paperwork drawn up to give them the greatest prof-- um, er, flexibility to package and sell the project after initial theatrical runs.
I know nothing about European artistic license/law -- and from reading this article, I want nothing to do with it. It sounds completely absurd to me. As I understand the article with regards to the use of a religious song in the tree-f*cking scene in I am Curious (Yellow), Kubric would have needed the song writer's permission to use Singin' in the Rain as compellingly as he did in A Clockwork Orange.
If you want artistic control over your project, get it in writing like Bergman or form your own production company like Fritjof Capra did for Mind Walk.
BTW, there is a so-called `director's cut' on some DVDs because the director usually does not even decide what is in the final version of the film in most cases. Sometimes the director of a film is not even invited in for the editing -- and the writer almost never is.
Perhaps this story illustrates the difficulty Europen cinema has competing with the US variety as much as it does a real trend in European artistic rights.
Re:TV programming exists only to sell advertising (Score:5, Interesting)
Well when the directors start sueing for (Score:2, Interesting)
It -is- afterall an expression of the company of which comercials to air, and when.... Like perhaps overall the comercials, are funny, or political, or downright serious
Other attacks on content (Score:5, Interesting)
Then I was watching a hockey game and I noticed how all the adds on the walls were changing. I thought that was kinda strange since Ive only seen them painted on. But then I saw the adds ON the ice change. Turns out none of the in stadium adds are broadcast, just ones from the networks. What the HELL is that? I would be pissed if I bought that advertisement spot!
It could be a lot worse (Score:3, Interesting)
That's what TNT started doing a few years ago. In particular, I remember one ad for an awards show of some sort, in which a "spotlights" would suddenly wave across the screen, then converge on the ad at the bottom. My interest in TNT had been declining ever since they fired Joe Bob [joebobbriggs.com], but those new ads were the last straw -- I changed the channel, and I haven't look back since.
Anyway, although I was surprised that TNT would make such a concerted effort to drive away viewers, I was even more suprised that the filmmakers would let them. A movie with those graphics superimposed clearly constitutes a derivative work, not just a performance of the original. Even a relatively flexible director wouldn't stand for that.
Of course, it's up to the copyright holder, which, in TNT's case, is almost always AOL. (In fact, AOL seems to hold most copyrights, period.) The more TV stations are able to run content that they own, the more freedom they have to do this sort of thing. It's just another consequence of the media oligopoly.
Re:I wish this could be done for DOGs (Score:3, Interesting)
I noticed when the "new TNN" started using them, and they annoyed me for all of 5 minutes. Then I just phased it out...either that or I am being secretly controlled by them by opening some sort of subconcious tunnel thingy.
Short reply (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes.
End of story.
(Actually, it's even more obvious when you watch American TV shows here in Europe. You can see _so_ _clearly_ where advertising is meant to go in those shows, only it doesn't over here.)
Re:Other attacks on content (Score:1, Interesting)
This has been going on for a while now. The service of super-imposing ads on live broadcasts is provided by the same company that creates the yellow "first down" line on the field of NFL games. Watch the backstop of the World Series this week, the ads are constantly different.
As far as doing it within a movie, the studio that owns the movie has to give the ok for it to be altered in anyway, including censored/dubbed dialog. If the director doesn't like the alterations he/she usually takes his/her name off the picture. (It used to be common practice to replace the director's name with "Alan Smithy")
Re:hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Only if the film was originally produced in North America is the uncut version likely to be region 1. It's perfectly possible for a film, produced elsewhere in the rest of the world, to be cut for release in the USA or Canada, in which case the region 1 DVD would be the cut version.