OMG! Werewolf: The Series - Page 3

If I had to guess, I'd say that one of the artists that said no to SF was Mike and the Mechanics (the song in question was "Silent Running"). I honestly know very little about the band, and the aforementioned song that was used on the 2-hour pilot for the series.

Yes, that may very well be true.  But I tend to think of music in a TV program, especially in a DVD release, as a sort of promotional thing.  People hear it, maybe like it, and go out and purchase a copy.  You don't make your money on the inclusion of the track but on sales to people who've found something new.  Unfortunately you have the artist, publishing house, label, and maybe more all wanting a piece of the pie.  Any one of them can say no to the terms and thus hold up or cause a release to be canceled.  What I've read is that the fee is typically ~$.10/per track per disk.  With a music heavy show this can quickly add up to more than a release would be worth and more than what it could realistically be sold for.  And that's with the "typical" fee.  Again, I see it as pure greed.  While I usually assign obscene music cost blame to labels or publishing houses the article I read specifically stated "artists".  As to whether or not it's what they would "normally" get... it's a DVD release.  Unless it's a concert DVD people don't purchase it to hear the music as it's just a support for the play.  Yes, it's sometimes a substantial support, but let's go back to the promotional aspect.  You really have to ask just how many "classic rock" artists sold CDs, etc. because of music in a program like "The Wonder Years".  Yet another series mired in music rights gouging.  If you're an artist, save the high price for your concert tickets or if you're a label/publishing house, hope the inclusion of "your" music in a DVD release sells a few more CDs or iTunes tracks.  Handled correctly it can be a win for all involved.

SF will not go bankrupt, or even close to bankruptcy over something like that.

P.S. Mike and the Mechanics are officially the greediest musicians to come out of the of the 1980's

You may be 100% correct but to suddenly make the leap from "If I had to guess..." and "I honestly know very little about the band..." to one post later and you're saying that they are "the greediest musicians to come out of the of the 1980's". Taking something from a guess to a fact is ridiculous and has a flimsy basis at best.

"Guessing", without hard facts, is probably not a good idea! 

Still, this information SHOULD be revealed by a party in the know. 

Why? So fans can hound the artists to the point they WON'T give in and licence the use?

Two thoughts come to mine here...

FIrst, I've seen (heard) some pretty amazing work where vocal tracks can be extracted from musical backgrounds.

Second, there are some talented voice artists out there that could possibly 'recreate' the dialog in the affected scenes.

Now, granted, it this is something that runs thru every (most) episode then it would be impractical. But one, maybe 2 scenes? Expensive, probably, more expensive than scrapping the project totally? Don't know. Yes, it would mean repressing a disc, but still...

That is a shame.  I was looking forward to an official release. 

I was so looking forward to this release......to the greedy artists who fucked up this release, "thanks....thanks very much for screwing the fans who wanted this show released....thanks for nothing!"

Since it killed the entire release, I assume maybe it's one or more of the composers who created the score for the series that are holding out? Maybe they thought they were underpaid for the original run?

It has to be related to music that runs through many of the episodes, rather than just a song or two since, as noted by myself and others here, they could reasonably re-create the dialogue for a couple of scenes with new music, if that's the whole issue.  But since they killed the whole project, it leads me to think it must be related to music that permeates the entire series.

Why all this criticism of the studio?    Business ventures are announced all the time and then situations arise that change that.

But they probably did the right thing by canceling. Because every time a show is released with changes, people go bananas.  If they drop it cause they don't want to change it, people go bananas.  They are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

 

But it does kind of make this release a perfect case study for music rights on DVD.  I mean, who benefited from this:

Customers? No.  
Shout Factory? No (in fact they probably lost money).  
Sony?  No (in fact, it might cause them to question if its even worth the trouble to license shows)
Music rights owners?  No x 2.  No they didn't get whatever the studio offered.  And 2nd, their music didn't get more exposure.  
 

Don't forget about the artists/publishers that did allow for their music to be used. Now they get nothing as well (or at least no extra exposure)

I'm a little surprised that with today's computer technology, the existing sound elements could not somehow be digitally processed, separating the dialogue from the music so that the offending music could be replaced and the existing dialogue reused.

Then again, maybe I watch too may crime shows where they seem to perform miracles in the computer with the worst quality recordings and end up solving the crime.

I'm going with that. Its like the "technology" that lets them take a tiny, fuzzy, partially obscured frame from a security camera and blow it up, enhance all the details and extrapolate the missing pieces to get a perfect image of the perp.

In any event, Shout Factory has yet to officially announce the project's cancellation, so I'm hopeful that Shout can still salvage this somehow. 

Why not employ the original actors for an afternoon to ADR the dialogue (or use sound-alikes). 

Or go the Alien 3 route and use subtitles for that scene.

Either route would be a lot cheaper than paying greedy copyright holders (note that a lot of bands don't hold copyright on their own material anymore, or only partial copyright, so the bands/artists may not be the problem here).