Steve Backshall - Nature's Microworlds - 2 Serengeti.mp4, b01l4906

[David Cantrell]

On Wed, Apr 04, 2018 at 11:58:44PM +0100, MacFH - C E Macfarlane wrote:

> And that's not to mention the absurdity of not being allowed to download 
> a 40-50 year old B&W version of 'Pride & Prejudice', or the 50 year old 
> 'Funny Girl' & 43 year old 'Funny Lady',  because of rights issues  -  
> how many extra DVD sales do the rights holders expect to get by 
> disallowing this?

The BBC has no choice but to respect the rights holders rights, and if
they didn't get online rights for the content then they *can't* put the
stuff online. You could argue that they jolly well ought to get those
rights, but then you have three issues.

First, the owner of those rights can say "ooh, we never knew this was
worth anything to anybody, we demand one beeeelion spondulicks" and
refuse to see reason and accept that Grandpa's work is just not worth
much.

Second, tracking down the current owner of the rights is Hard after that
long, given that companies have been liquidated, gone out of business,
been bought and sold, and that people have died and left their rights
(often not listed in detail) to heirs who will often have died
themselves (leaving even fewer details about the rights they inherited
from their parents).

Third, the BBC doesn't have complete records of who owned the rights
half a century ago which makes the second problem even harder. Back then
no-one knew that anyone would care. And when they do have records
they've probably not been digitised so they don't know that they have
the records or where they are and certainly can't find them.

That second one in particular is a major pain in the arse. I've been
trying off and on for several years to track down the current owners of
the copyright in a particular out of print book that I would like to
re-publish. And for a book with only two authors and one publisher it
should be easy compared to a TV programme with writers, actors,
directors, composers, ...

-- 
David Cantrell | Enforcer, South London Linguistic Massive

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.
At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear
shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house.
   -- Robert A Heinlein