Do The Studios Know Their Shows? (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Peter Rohlfs

According to IMDB "In Search Of" was hosted by Nimoy 1976-1982. Would the research done for those shows about 29-35 years ago still be relevent?

I'm guessing it would be a mixed bag. I saw In Search Of... reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel (?) maybe 10 or 15 years ago and one featured the Titanic and wondered if its final resting place would ever be found (I think it was discovered about 2 and a half decades ago) but I'm sure many episodes would still be as up to date as they were 35 years ago.

 

[Stephen Wight]

Originally Posted by Neil Brock

There are so many variables in music clearance, it's impossible to make any such blanket assumption (unless the song and performance are in the public domain, which makes it easy). There are really no set rules -- the rights owner can ask for any amount he feels like at that minute, or outright refuse rights at any price. It doesn't have to be consistent; he can demand five times as much for one project as he does on another. Think about what you'd do if you owned the only orange tree in the country. You could charge whatever you wanted for oranges, and sure, some people might well opt to eat apples instead, but for anybody desperate for an orange, you could set your price at whim. You might sell it to the pretty girl for half what you sell it to the rich geezer for, just because you felt like it.

Again, one key is how the original contracts were drawn up. For any show made before this millennium, certainly nobody anticipated the various sorts of rights a show might need for then-unimagined means of distribution. But it's quite possible that 1975 Show A, which featured live musical acts, happened to luck out by contractually securing wider rights than 1975 Show B, which used needle-drops established by the boilerplate contract of the day, which granted only broadcast rights. These things happen all the time, and in a case like this, Show A doesn't even have to clear the music (it was cleared 36 years ago), while Show B has to negotiate anew and play catch-up.

The point is, never assume that any two examples are alike. They may seem to be, superficially. But without knowing the specifics, these assumptions are no more than guesswork.

Thanks for your explanation. I just thought that,with live performances,the rights were doubled,so to speak,snce the artist is shown singing the song. Again, I'm no music rights expert.