THE WONDER YEARS (Consolidated Thread; No New Ones, Please!)

And to top it off, Daniel Stern wants too much money for the voiceovers, so they're replacing it with Bob Saget's voice.

I think that if WYs is released on DVD, it won't have any recognizable music, at all.

Where it concerns music, the artists who write and record these songs do indeed retain the rights to their own music. Those companies who sign recording contracts with those studios who want to use that music retain those rights as long as they hold that recording contract with that artist.

What's only being reported ius a shit-load of puclic relations spin by the studios saying that the companies that retain the rights to the music in question are asking too much. How is it that only one side of the issue has come forth. Television Studios who want to release these shows often spin the story in thyeir favor when talks break down as far as what one side thinks they should get paid.

Thye music companies know how much the music means to a given series and when it gets released to DVD the television studios don't want to pay a fair price for that music so they argue, moan and complain when they believe they should be able to set their own price. These studios need to stop the monkeying around and just pay these artists and the those who hold the distribution rights to that music the amount that they're entitled to.

To put it mildly, I've only heard one case where a record company owned the rights to a particular song and that was with the Righteous Brothers song for the Ghost soundtrack where they sold the rights to the song to a record company because they didn't like it or something along those lines.

Even when a piece of music is created for a television series or for a movie, the artist still retains the original creative rights to that song. This is a part of the copyright law regarding the creator of intellectual property.

the studios want to pay these artists the money for their recordings, but for some reason they don't want the money, or it looks like they don't want their recordings associated with these TV shows. What is the hassle? these recordings are already made, they don't need to do any extra work, easy money. Of course if they want $1 million dollars for every DVD copy sold for their song to pay off some huge debts, well what can I say?

Anthony, I don't think it has anything to do with that at all. I think it has something to do with getting the appropriate payment for what they consider fair payment for services rendered on their product. If a set is priced at $60 retail, and they set their price at for that song at $5 per DVD sold ... it is considered fair. With approximately a guess that for every 100,000 copies of a boxed set with that song attached to it, my guess is that they are asking for $500,000 for every 100,000 copies made and that's part of the price of that boxed set. WIth theme music, the studios probably own that music but with actual songs that certain shows use from recorded artists then those fees are bound to go up for a new medium such as DVD.

Also found this:

Mark, go back earlier in this thread and read Randy Salas' explanation of the music rights issue. In many cases publishing rights (which are different from songwriter's rights and performing rights) are held not by the artists, not by the record companies/labels, but by individuals or companies who buy & sell them like real estate.

No one here is suggesting that artists not get paid for their work. But the fact is that the artists are often not even involved in these negotiations.

And I know your $5 example was just that - an example, but that figure is WAY high. Take "The Wonder Years" Season 1, which was just 6 episodes and would likely be a single disc release. In those 6 episode there were 23 pop songs (Music from The Wonder Years). So if rightsholders wanted $5 per song per DVD sold you'd be looking at this single disc costing $115, and that's without considering all the other costs that go into making and marketing DVDs (including the residuals for the creative forces behind the show itself). At that price, no one's making any money because no one's going to buy it.

I'll grant we are only hearing one side of the story. Because the other side isn't talking. I'm sorry, I'm not prepared to give people who go out of their way to be annonymous and not tell their story the benefit of the doubt.

I have no idea who you are talking about here.

I was referring to Mark's contension that the studeos are refusing to pay proper market value for songs and that the information we have is all 'propaganda'. My point is that the reason we are only hearing one side is that the music rights holders go out of their way not to speak to the press or to let their side of the story out to the public.

That's nice. So what? That's total consumer spending on DVD, not studio profits. Before the studio sees dime one the retailer and distributor take their cut. Then there's returns. Finally when all that dust settles the studio sees how much it took in and then deducts how much it cost to produce and master the DVDs, replicate, package and ship them to the distributor, and advertise the things so that somebody would buy them. Finally they have to deduct contractual royalties to other parties (this would include the music rights holders) and whatever's left over goes into the studio's coffers. Which, I can assure you, is nothing remotely like $3.9 billion for all the studios combined. So throwing around numbers like that, utterly without context, is less than useless in a disucssion like this.

Regards,

Joe

Kinda like how Amazon.com was selling millions or dollars of merchandise every quarter, but still losing money.

Gord

Apparently, everyone here is so intent on blaming those music rights holders and not looking at the overall issue. While I understand everyone's concern both side of the issue are to blame, not just those parties who hodl the rights to the music.

The music rights holders are to blame for not negotiating the rights for reasonable liscensing fees and the studios are to blame for not negotiating for those rights and paying the rights holders or the artists a fair an equitable price.

With TV DVD profits goiing higher and higher the studios need to start addressing this and paying for certain pieces of music. WKRP is a prime example of this. All throughout the series they played hot songs and from hot artists during the seventies and eighties and this was the mistake they made.The show is a music liscensing hell to get on DVD because there are so many parties involved with that show. The studios don't want to relinquish their profits or cut into their profits by paying what the studios want for the cost of that music, despite the fact if the artists had already been paid for it duiring its initial broadcast run. Since the DVD market exploded with TV DVD sets, these studios are so glombed into this genre they they expect that those songs are theirs and they should be able to release the unedited versions with the songs intact for next to nothing.

Apparently, everyone here thinks that these shows should be released without liscensing those songs for a new medium (DVD). Despite the arguments, and I would love to see this series released, the show is a nightmare for liscensed music rights holders. Each song has to be re-negotiated for the release for each episode and these studios are going to end up paying for the rights for that music or they won't release it ... period.

I see what you are saying but I still am pissed off why a decent agreement cant be made so both parties benefit. End of the day, its down to one party being more greedier than the other. Simple as....

Ah. FWIW, I agree.

What evidence do you have that the studios are refusing to pay fair & equitable prices??

That's just ridiculous. I've never seen anyone on this board advocate that.

First, I do agree that the rights-holders are probably asking too much, and they should agree to a reasonable amount, but with a lot of songs for a series, they should be dipping into the profits of other shows that have been released.

Although way off the mark, look at Star Trek. No music rights, and selling for $100 a season. I'd love to see the net profit margin they made off of those!

The same goes for movies with or without any music. Why don't the studios release the movies that might barely break even, using profits from other shows?

Glenn

That's poor business. They evaluate every property on how much money they expect to make from it, not only right now, but in the future. If they can make more money in the future (by launching it with a theatrical movie) then they'll hold off. If they think they can make more money now, they'll release it now (My Big Fat Greek Life). Telling shareholders that you used the profits from one project to fund another wouldn't go over well. That's how companies get into trouble financially.

Gord

As Gord pointed out, that's not a reasonable buisness practice.


And as I've said before, Star Trek is rarely a good example to compare to anything but something else within that francise. It is a special case.

First, while studios make profits from these shows when they are release to DVD, it's only fair to those agencies who hold the rights to the music that appears in these shows that they either share in the profits or pay for the rights to use that music when it's released to DVD.

Addendum: Originally, when music is created for a television show that music is only negotiated for broadcasting rights.

Furthermore, most studios generally don't negotiate for the rights for eventual release to DVD because it's generally not known how successful a particular series will do during its original broadcast dates.

Side Notes: It hasn't been known until recently that some studios have begun negotiating for the rights of particular music created for a television show for its eventual release to DVD. A reasonable course of action by these studios.

While these studios do try to negotiate most often there is a minor point that is often holding them up and they are not neccessary due to the price on how much these television studios will pay. This most often have to do with a variety of things such as a share in the profits due to future sales of the DVD sets. Bear in mind that the prices that the rights holders have maye have to do with payments for a certain number of sets produced.

Secondary, there are two different sides on the music side of this issue. This most likely has to do with the payment that the artists for that song want added to the fact on how much the studio wants for its own particular fee.

Please be aware that I do sympathize with everyone here. I would greatly appreciate the fact if they would release "The Wonder Years" and WKRP" and many of those other shows and while I respect the rights of these studios to want to negotiate for a reasonable price for the liscensing of that music I also respect the rights of the creators of their music to be able to get paid for using their music.

On the other hand, with shows like WKRP, what everyone doesn't realize here, is that this show probably has a million different songs that they would need to negotiate for and this being released on DVD was probably something that never occured to the studios back in the 70's and 80's The only way a show like WKRP and The Wonder Years could get released is if they agreed to pay the rights holders a percentage of the profits from the DVD sales. All parties would benefit by such an agreement and it takes a lot of time to negotiate things like this from all parties.

Then for WKRP & WY, we may as well forget it. It just ain't gonna happen, period.

Glenn

I'd like to introduce two phrases that are apparently wholly unfamiliar to some of those in this thread:

"Supply and demand"

"What the market will bear"

Some of you may want to look them up. Prices are data, a form of communication between buyer and seller. The only rational definition of the monetary value of any item is: "What someone else is willing to pay for it." If Trek fans weren't willing to pay $100 for those sets, Paramount would either have to cut the price or stop producing them. If people were willing to pay $200 for them, Paramount would be stupid to charge a dime less. Their costs have nothing to do with this except to the degree that if their costs were so high that they'd have to charge more than people would spend in order to break even, they (rationally) wouldn't produce the sets at all. That is exactly the decision that Fox has taken with regard to WKRP. Once they added in what the music rights holders wanted to all the other costs of producing and marketing the discs, they calculated what they'd have to charge per set to at least break even and concluded that it would be more than the public would collectively be wiling to pay. It isn't like the studios don't do polling and market research on this stuff.

Fox's numbers tell them that fans will buy "x" copies of the discs at price points "a", "b" and "c". If "c" is the highest price and the smallest number of sales, and the music rights would drive the cost up to the point where Fox would have to charge "c" or higher to make a profit, Fox isn't going to release the show.

These are just economic realities. They are morally neutral. It is absurd to talk about "evil" studios or "greedy" rights holders or to impute bad faith to either party. Everybody tries to get the best deal for him or herself, the numbers either work or do not. To bring some kinder higher ethics or morality into the discussion is to appeal to the kind of "cosmic justice" that is not the purview of law or government or business.

I think a case can be made that the studios bear all the cost and produce the product, so their economic parameters are more limited. The rights holders are being offered money for the use of something that already exists and they need only accept or reject the offer. I would suggest to the rights-holders that 10% of something is better than 100% of nothing, but people are not always rational in these matters. One thing everyone thinks of in negotiating today's deals is what effect they may have on tomorrow's. If I own a song and license if for a relatively low fee for a DVD set, does that hurt my ability to charge more for someone to use it next year in a feature film? Sure it "shouldn't" do so in the "cosmic justice" sense, and in fact the film producer's shouldn't even know how much the DVD producer paid for the song. But in the real world the movie producer is going to find out, because the industry is a hot-bed of gossip, and people are going to use such knoweldge to try to maximize their advantage.

If you want more information about how markets actually work, based on empirical observation of reality instead of airy theories about how things should work, go to the nearest public or university library and see if you can find a copy of Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell.

Regards,

Joe

I certainly don't fault anyone for using basic economics in decisions regarding release of this show. That doesn't mean we can't discuss whether the parties are making intelligent business decisions. Let me illustrate:

AFAIK, WY uses only a part of each song.

If the rights holders are expecting payment based on the whole song, then I have doubts that the studios are asking an unfair price for using the music.

An argument can be made that, if anything, the use of that snippet of song on the DVD will actually promote sales of the artist's CDs, since the DVD purchaser isn't getting the whole song, and is not buying the show just for the songs.

Because of this, put me in the camp of those who think the recording studios/artists are using "extortion-like" strategies to unfairly mine the TV studio's goldmine of TV-on-DVD.

Actually, Louis, you have it wrong. Most studios or those agents who hold the rights to a song won't negotiate with a studio who wants only "part" of a song. They usually end up negotiating for the song "in general."

I've never heard of a studio for a series negotiating for part of a song.

The case with WKRP is that WKRP has so many shows which appears during the season run which leads to a rights nightmare. WKRP has lots of music because during the old days of TV, the recording industry had a rule which stated that if you recorded your shows on videotape instead of film, you get a discount on the music & this is the reason why WKRP has so much music.

Fox Germany is planning to release The Wonder Years - Season One in early 2006, so that voting appearantly helped. I will keep you updated on all the details as they become available.

Season one is also due for release in the UK on 13th March.

Wow, if we don't get it here then this may be the final push I need to finally get a region-free DVD player. This and Blake's 7 on DVD are the only two shows left that I MUST OWN!

YOU BEAUTY

Cheers mate, made my day.

I can only presume that music rights must be less costly to clear here in the UK than in the States, hence the forthcoming release of The Wonder Years and the intact music on the Quantum Leap discs.

This also might be why we've had the complete series of Ally McBeal out on DVD over here, compared with only a "Best Of" release (?) in the U.S.

Has anyone actually confirmed that all of the original music is intact? If the answer is "yes" then I too will be buying a region-free player.