[opendtv] Re: Wright Issues Call To Copyright Action
- From: etg <etg@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 08:48:11 -0500
The other side of the story is that the studios will retain pristine
digital copies of all of their works. That way whenever a client
(future tense) wants a copy the auditors can certify that they still
have a copy to sell. The problem is that because these works are of
such high value, the digital storage of the material will be encrypted
to prevent theft. Too bad that they cannot find the decryption keys for
the digital files.
John Willkie wrote:
>Great points, Henry. I found, in buying rights to air programs/movies, that
>the sale was more important than anything, including content. If one had
>any question about technical details or the like, the distributor would say:
>"Oh, for that, you have to talk to the lab."
>
>These assets is/were valuable, so valuable that the actual handling of the
>assets was out-sourced to a paid laboratory. So, when the rentals stopped
>coming in, the lab (not the owner) placed the assets in one of a series of
>increasingly worse storage environment.
>
>And, if you wanted a fresh copy from a master print, you had to pay for it,
>and then, the fresh print went back to the lab, where it was treated like
>the old copies. And, since every station that aired a movie retained the
>right to edit the movie, they usually did this to the actual distribution
>copies, since otherwise, they would have to ask the lab to strike a new
>copy. Labs seldom had the rights to do this, and few stations could bear
>the cost.
>
>Did I recently mention the time that KABC-TV in Los Angeles showed "Cabaret"
>as a 3:30 movie, only by removing all the musical numbers from the film?
>
>(Movies is/were sold in packages, not individual titles; I always wondered
>how that alone enabled Hollywood to increase the amount of "funny
>accounting." Ever hear of a residual owner that audited their payments and
>did not find the studio owing them much more money than the audit cost?)
>
>Digital will help some of these aspects, but I've found that digital copies
>can mean that their more likely to deteriorated than the celluloid prints
>you speak of turning to dust. At least when digital storage devices fail,
>they are usually not explosive in the process.
>
>How many times have you heard of a movie, long thought to be lost to time,
>that was resurrected because some retired projectionist liked the movie, and
>stored reels of the film in the back of a barn, under piles of pig manure?
>Such folks did not have the right to do that, but bless their acts in
>retrospect!
>
>A few decades from now (increased tempo in releasing movies), the digital
>equivalent will be "was reconstructed from a near-pristine copy that had
>been illegally downloaded decades before."
>
>John Willkie
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Henry Baker
>Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 11:34 AM
>To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [opendtv] Re: Wright Issues Call To Copyright Action
>
>
>Am I the only one that thinks that it is the height of irony that the _only_
>reason we have copies of the earliest movies today is because the copyright
>office
>required that, in order to get a copyright, you had to deposit a hard copy
>print
>of the movie with the copyright office. This meant printing the entire
>movie out
>on paper.
>
>The wizards of Hollywood have been so aggressive in stamping out illegal
>copies,
>and so incompetent at storing their own copies, that a huge fraction of
>early
>movies have now gone up in smoke (literally) or decomposed into explosive
>dust.
>They keep telling Congress about how valuable this stuff is -- _every_ item,
>no
>matter how worthless, has the same copyright treatment, and (unlike patents)
>there
>are no fees to pay to keep up the copyright -- and yet they do nothing to
>protect
>these "valuable" assets.
>
>At 10:56 AM 10/30/2004, Tom Barry wrote:
>
>
>>I would agree, except that to grant any extensions, a digital
>>non-encrypted copy should be required to be deposited for safe keeping
>>with the Library of Congress. We have the technology to keep all this
>>now and it would protect against copyright extension via DRM. The
>>escrowed copies would become publicly available for reasonable cost
>>after the copyright expired and they entered the public domain.
>>
>>- Tom
>>
>>
>
>
>
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