Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5? (1 Viewer)

We waited so long between Seaon One and Season Two and then Fox seemed to be on reasonable release schedule.

So where is the next Season? Anybody know?

Thanks

Folks on the board are guess-timating January, in keeping with previous releases. No news yet though has me kind of worried.

Any news yet? It seems like an awful long time.

Thanks

awful long time? it hasn't been six months since season 4 came out. There was a 3 year gap between 1 and 2. Not everything come sout in 3 month intervals (even if they should)

Minneapolis. Same as the other seasons. Geez...

The previous three seasons were released six months apart. If Fox was keeping to their pattern, I would have expected a January release which I'd expect would have been announced by now. The fact that they haven't announced anything, combined with a little distrust toward Fox over their decision to hold it back for 3 years after the first season release, and combined further by the fact that the studios rarely, if ever, let it be known what their intentions are for future releases, tends to make one a little anxious/nervous when the pattern isn't followed.

Some of the best episodes of MTM are on those final three seasons. To Fox, I say - Lets get a move on and get those sets out - PRONTO!

I have a few other things I'd like to say to Fox, all of which would get me thrown off this forum!

Seeing how Fox likes to trim episodes rather than pay any music rights fees I wonder how they'll handle the last episode with the "long way to Tipperary" song. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that gets replaced by generic humming.

Steve

"It's a great distance to a town in Southwest Ireland,
It's a great distance, to traverse..."

It's in the public domain now, isn't it?

"Tipperary" may be in the public domain, but I don't think that "One For My Baby" and "Steam Heat" are. Mary's rendition of "Baby" and Georgette's performance of "Steam Heat" are, in my opinion, among the high points of the series. I hope they are not omitted from the DVD version.

Nope, they were written in the 1950s.

I don't think that has anything to do with whether a song is in the public domain or not. I think once a copyright expires, if the original owner of the rights renews the copyright, it'll once again be owned.

You're mostly right about that one. Copyright on a song lasts for 75 years, and it can be extended for an additional 20 years. After that, it becomes public domain (unless the US government changes the Copyright Act again in the meantime).

"Happy Birthday" is the classic example. It was written by two school teacher sisters, Mildred and Patty Hill, in the late 1800s. But it wasn't copyrighted until 1935.

When a copyrighted song is used in a movie or TV show, both the publisher and the songwriters get royalties. No one can take away the songwriters' 50% share of the royalties. The only thing the songwriters can sell is the publishing rights, which amounts to 50% of the royalties. (Typically, the record company's publishing arm likes to take control of the publishing rights for songs by any of their artists.)

So given the 95 year copyright term, "Happy Birthday" will remain copyrighted until 2030, and every time it's used in a TV show or movie, Patty and Mildred get credit, and both the publisher (a division of AOL Time Warner) and the songwriters (in this case, the estate of Patty & Mildred) get paid.

Apparently, "Happy Birthday" still rakes in about $2 million in royalties annually.

Does anyone think the delay in an announcement for season 5 stems from Fox having to negotiate the rights to any of the previously mentioned songs?

This was actually a plot point in Sports Night, Aaron Sorkin's "behind the scenes at a 'Sports Center'-type show" series from a few years back. Sports anchor Danny is shocked to get a bill from the network's accounting department to cover the royalties for the use of "Happy Birthday" - which he sung on the air to his co-anchor without getting prior approval. He's seen in several later episodes trying to get out of paying the two hundred or so bill, but finally has to fork over.

Both "One for My Baby" and "Steam Heat" were written specifically for dramatic works, not as simply as songs, and I wonder if that affects their copyright status. "One for My Baby" was written as part of the score for the Fred Astaire film The Sky's the Limit, where he performed it as a solo song and dance number, while "Steam Heat" is from the Broadway musical (later film) Pajama Game. Like I said, I have no idea if this makes a difference or not, but it certainly seems possible. Is there an entertainment lawyer in the house?

Regards,

Joe

A song is a song... is a song ;-)

The format for which is was written (play, movie, tv show, album/cd) doesn't affect its copyright.

Here's a site with some good info. Click on the "articles / Q&A" link.

http://www.copyrightmv.com/

John has been doing this for a very long time and has some interesting comments.

A song is a song is a song, yes. But when that song is performed, other rights can come into effect. Let's take the example of "Steam Heat." If a character is shown singing that song in the shower, or at a microphone, or the like, the song is simply the song. But if you want to perform that song in a manner and context similar to its performance in the show/movie "The Pajama Game," then what you need is "grand rights." That is, you're not simply performing the song, you're recreating a copyrighted performance of it in some way.

I'm no legal expert, and where exactly grand rights begin and end is definitely fuzzy. They can include (but are not limited to) choreography, wardrobe, context, style of performance, etc.

And that is an extra wrinkle that goes beyond a song being simply a song.

Also, let's not forget that even though most of the song was edited out, they DID use several seconds of "White Christmas" on the DVD version of the 1st season Christmas episode. Enough was used so that I could tell what song it was, yet I'm sure the amount used was small enough so Fox didn't have to pay any amount to the Irving Berlin estate.

I know it's not what you're implying, but your post made me think of the oft-repeated statement that if you use fewer than "x" number of notes of a song, you don't have to pay royalties. This is an urban myth. More often than not, if it ends up in court, it comes down to whether or not the snippet of song that was used is recognizable to a lay-person. If it is, then royalties are owed. But even then, there are no hard and fast rules for any of this.

And if you DO have to negotiate royalties, it's just that: a negotiation. It can depend on the range of media where you'll be using the song (TV, radio, DVD, movie, etc.), the length of time for which you want to license it, the geographical area where it'll be heard... and more than anything, what value the licensor thinks the music has to you. If it's a huge hit song that you're licensing, and your production absolutely depends on you using the song (and the licensor KNOWS this!), then they're likely to hit you up for a bigger fee.

I recently was involved in the negotiation for the use of a well-known 50s song in a commercial. Our client had used the full song for the past 5 years in their advertising. This year, we only wanted to use the last line of the chorus: a simple 5-note mnemonic. Yet we still had to pay the same fee as in previous years. The licensor claimed that the song was now part of our client's "brand", and therefore had more value than if it was used as a one-time advertising jingle. The unspoken subtext to this argument was "you've used this song for 5 years now, and we know you can't do without it, so you're going to have to pay handsomely for it".