Home Theater Forum - View Single Post - Are lines ever edited out because of copyright?

Mike*SC · 04-25-2008, 02:38 PM

Sure, lines and scenes are edited out later for a variety of reasons, but it's not the same issue as music clearance rights.

The issue with music is that everybody knows that money is owed, but depending on how the rights were purchased back when the show was first produced (i.e. for what media, which regions, and for how long), the rights may have to be repurchased for home video, with no guidelines as to the price demanded.

You don't have to buy the rights to say the words "Mickey Mouse" or "Budweiser." But you have to clear those copyrighted names through the legal department, because if those references are judged by Disney or Anheuser-Busch to be disparaging, these companies can sue. Even if the legal department decides the usage is fair, many production companies will delete the reference anyway, because they don't want to chance a lawsuit which will be expensive even if they win it. And yes, there's insurance for this sort of thing, but the deductibles are not cheap.

(This is all separate from paid product placement or the "monetizing" of brand placement into a show. This must be negotiated weeks in advance, and can come at the expense of other advertisers unwilling to place commercials on a show.)

There's no reason that one should have to renegotiate anything to get to say those same copyrighted names on home video. The reason they are sometimes deleted is because a lawsuit was threatened at the time of the original airing, or a new legal department is more cautious, or the company named has become more litigious. Occasionally, the legal department may simply have failed to notice the usage the first time around. And so, the reference is deleted.

But this is a completely different scenario from the deletion of music and/or lyrics.

04-25-2008, 02:38 PM	#7 of 9
MikeSC Member Join Date: Jun 2005* Local Time: 10:55 PM Local Date: 09-07-2008 Posts: 172	Re: Are lines ever edited out because of copyright? Sure, lines and scenes are edited out later for a variety of reasons, but it's not the same issue as music clearance rights. The issue with music is that everybody knows that money is owed, but depending on how the rights were purchased back when the show was first produced (i.e. for what media, which regions, and for how long), the rights may have to be repurchased for home video, with no guidelines as to the price demanded. You don't have to buy the rights to say the words "Mickey Mouse" or "Budweiser." But you have to clear those copyrighted names through the legal department, because if those references are judged by Disney or Anheuser-Busch to be disparaging, these companies can sue. Even if the legal department decides the usage is fair, many production companies will delete the reference anyway, because they don't want to chance a lawsuit which will be expensive even if they win it. And yes, there's insurance for this sort of thing, but the deductibles are not cheap. (This is all separate from paid product placement or the "monetizing" of brand placement into a show. This must be negotiated weeks in advance, and can come at the expense of other advertisers unwilling to place commercials on a show.) There's no reason that one should have to renegotiate anything to get to say those same copyrighted names on home video. The reason they are sometimes deleted is because a lawsuit was threatened at the time of the original airing, or a new legal department is more cautious, or the company named has become more litigious. Occasionally, the legal department may simply have failed to notice the usage the first time around. And so, the reference is deleted. But this is a completely different scenario from the deletion of music and/or lyrics.