music rights on DVD

[Dean Winchester]

is there anyone who can really discuss the lengths it takes to get songs cleared for DVD?

Especially with the announcement of Miami Vice coming to DVD, I am curious to know this.

Here are some examples of the original music making it to the DVD:
-Friends season 1, the end of the last episode retained the Madonna "Take A Bow" music while Rachel was standing at the airport
-Diff'rent Strokes season 1, in the pilot episode, Arnold turns on the radio and you hear "Disco Inferno" by The Trammps
-Buffy The Vampire Slayer season 4, in the second episode, you still hear Cher's "Believe" when Buffy's demon roommate was listening to the radio.

and then you have these.
-Roswell season 1 removed 90% of the music from the show, except for the theme song (Dido's Here With Me) and a couple of songs by people like Sarah McLachlan and Dave Matthews that played during key scenes.
-Dawson's Creek season 3 removes the theme song (Paula Cole's I Don't Want To Wait).. I don't own it but am aware

You would honestly think that Cher or Madonna's songs would actually cost more to retain than a lot of the period alternative songs circa 1999-2000 that they couldn't clear to put on Roswell and Dawson's Creek.

So exactly what is the holdup. And if Miami Vice is coming, does this mean shows like The Wonder Years, WKRP In Cincinnati, Malcolm In The Middle seasons 2+ and Ally McBeal will eventually come out?

[barwars]

I dont think WKRP nor The Wonder Years will be work without original music.

Especially WKRP -- the show was about radio for god's sake!

[vashti1999]

This article from NY Newsday is obviously a few months old, but may answer some general questions on the music rights subject



Roadblock to a boom

BY DIANE WERTS


Wondering why you don't see "Miami Vice" on DVD? How about "WKRP in Cincinnati"?

"Look at the music clearance rights," says Peter Staddon, the Fox Home Entertainment senior vice president who oversees DVD development. Fox video holds DVD rights to "WKRP's" radio station comedy, but "when that show was created [in 1978], they didn't think about the need to clear [song rights] for home video, because home video didn't exist, let alone DVD. It becomes very prohibitive in terms of putting that out."

How prohibitive? Maybe a million dollars prohibitive. Per season. So it isn't greedy stars or producers standing in the way of many TV classics coming to DVD. It's the cost of popular songs on the soundtrack. When series like "Vice" and "KRP" began using hit music 25 years ago to create cool atmosphere, they also created a hornet's nest of down-the-line issues - now coming back to sting this nascent TV-DVD boom.

"The studios try to get the most recognizable songs they can for the initial airing," says Shawn Ryan, creator of "The Shield" for FX cable, "and they take no care financially to preserve the ability to have those songs be with the shows in the future." Though Ryan uses up to 15 music cues weekly in his gritty cop drama, both of Fox video's "Shield" season sets have included music as aired, because Ryan is a DVD devotee. "We took the approach from the beginning to use cutting-edge music, unknown music, six-months-ahead-of- the-curve music," which was inexpensive or easy to acquire "in perpetuity." Not to mention fresh.

Classic hits are a different matter. And older shows are paying the price. Literally. When cult fave "Freaks and Geeks" comes out on DVD today - all 18 episodes of NBC's quirky 1999 take on 1980 high school life - it carries a list price of $70, or $10 higher than most season sets. But it includes all its original songs, about a half-dozen per episode, mostly period faves like Billy Joel's "Rosalinda's Eyes," Bob Seger's "Beautiful Loser" or Styx' "Come Sail Away."

"Freaks" fans should count themselves lucky. Many studios won't go through the hassle of clearing a hundred songs. In fact, this show's production studio, DreamWorks, didn't. The eclectic independent label Shout! Factory, launched two years ago by former Rhino executives, approached DreamWorks for DVD rights to a show whose official Web site listed tens of thousands of fans who'd buy such a release.

"With the music and how it was used, it was inherent in the integrity of the product to make deals to license the music as it originally appeared," says Shout! chief operating officer Bob Emmer, who waded through the licensing morass. To clear DVD music rights for just one episode, he says, "you may be dealing with 10 different approvals and 10 different negotiations for just the master side" of the original recordings. "Then, you switch over to the publishing side" for the songs' composers. It's not only time-consuming, but "on something very music-intensive, it could run close to, if not over, a million dollars."

Music clearance for Shout!'s June 8 first-season release of the "SCTV" sketch series took "close to a year," Emmer says. The nine-episode set will list at $100. "You can't just go pull out the music and substitute, because it was so embedded in the fabric of the sketch itself."

Substituting is, to fans' dismay, quite possible in other series. Originally aired songs were replaced by alternative choices in DVDs of "Dawson's Creek," "Felicity" and "Roswell," whose executive producer not only oversaw the changes but extolled them on a DVD insert. "Profiler's" first-season set omitted an episode due to clearance issues with The Police song "Every Breath You Take." Fans of Ray Sharkey's arc in "Wiseguy" were disappointed by the finale's climactic replacement of "Nights in White Satin" by The Moody Blues - a song that did get cleared for "Freaks and Geeks."

So maybe it isn't true we'll never see some song-filled shows on DVD. "I love to hear 'never see it,' because that's where we step in," says Emmer, whose Shout! label bills itself as being "for the discerning pop culture geek." He admits, "'WKRP' or 'That '70s Show' would be a monumental task. But that's what we excel in."

[robyrob]

be nice if they publicised the names of the refusing copyright holders so we could boycott THEM :cuss:

[spunkygirl]

Originally posted by robyrob
be nice if they publicised the names of the refusing copyright holders so we could boycott THEM :cuss:

:nod: :mad:

[Dean Winchester]

one thing I find baffling is that Ally McBeal's music rights were cleared and it's been released in China and England, but yet they have problems clearing it for region 1. If you clear music rights for one region, shouldn't that apply for ALL?

[vashti1999]

Originally posted by BuffySlayer79
one thing I find baffling is that Ally McBeal's music rights were cleared and it's been released in China and England, but yet they have problems clearing it for region 1. If you clear music rights for one region, shouldn't that apply for ALL?

Not necessarily. Not that I know this to be the case with Ally McBeal, but there are shows that use different music for different locations. For example, there was a teen series on Showtime a decade ago called Chris Cross. Songs heard playing in the background on the American broadcast were different than songs heard on European broadcasts. That was a case of different music playing better to different audiences. Not sure if that's the same case with shows being released on dvd in other regions and not here, but sometimes the music used is completely different based on where it's broadcast, independent of music rights issues.

[Dean Winchester]

Originally posted by vashti1999
Not necessarily. Not that I know this to be the case with Ally McBeal, but there are shows that use different music for different locations. For example, there was a teen series on Showtime a decade ago called Chris Cross. Songs heard playing in the background on the American broadcast were different than songs heard on European broadcasts. That was a case of different music playing better to different audiences. Not sure if that's the same case with shows being released on dvd in other regions and not here, but sometimes the music used is completely different based on where it's broadcast, independent of music rights issues.

with Ally McBeal, a good 95% of the music rights would be coming from Vonda Shepard. Every last episode had her performing songs (some new, some old and known from other artists) both at the bar and also as background music. The only four episodes I can think of which would have problems with (and even then, I think they should be cleared for being integral parts to the show) were Tina Turner's guest-shot episode, an episode right after Billy died and Ally was upset and then Gloria Gaynor appears in Ally's apartment singing I Will Survive,, the Barry White episode and Mariah Carey singing at the bar during the last season in the episode she appeared in. I am sure that none of these were altered from overseas episodes since the artists came on the show and appeared themselves.

[knghtrdr2000]

In the Season 1 release of the A-Team, they edited out Jumpin Jack Flash out of the pilot episode when they escape Lynch at the airport. Universal used a syndicated insert in place of the original song. The only way I knew this was b/c I compared it to the CH version. Since the A-Team dvd had a retail price at $60, I don't see why they couldn't have just left the song in there.

[Brad]

Originally posted by knghtrdr2000
In the Season 1 release of the A-Team, they edited out Jumpin Jack Flash out of the pilot episode when they escape Lynch at the airport. Universal used a syndicated insert in place of the original song. The only way I knew this was b/c I compared it to the CH version. Since the A-Team dvd had a retail price at $60, I don't see why they couldn't have just left the song in there. ABKCO (the owners of all Rolling Stones recordings through 1970) has jacked up licensing fees to crazy heights in recent years. Universal probably tried, but I'm willing to bet ABKCO asked for a ridiculous price.

[dlemond]

Here is what I don't understand.

OK- Freaks and Geeks had to pay for the music rights, and it is out on DVD. WKRP is supposed to be too cost prohibitive because of the amount of songs they would have to pay for.

I want you to see all the songs that are in Freaks and Geeks in its one season and that apparently are able to be paid for and released on dvd. (there is NO EXCUSE FOR NO WKRP):

Freaks and Geeks songs in one season:

Runnin' With the Devil" by Van Halen; "I'm Alright" by Kenny Loggins; "Renegade" and "Come Sail Away" by Styx / "Hush" by Deep Purple; "Jesus Is Just Alright With Me" (Doobie Brothers; originally by the Byrds), performed by Sarah Hagan and Jason Segel; "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" by Rick Derringer; "No One to Depend On" by Santana; "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" by Van Halen; "Maybe" by Janis Joplin; "Do You Love Me?" by Kiss /The Monster Mash" (Bobby "Boris" Pickett), sung by Becky Ann Baker; "Gonna Raise Hell" by Cheap Trick; "Roller" by April Wine; "Free-for-All" by Ted Nugent/ Takin' Care of Business" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive; "Superfly" by Curtis Mayfield; "Love's Theme" by Love Unlimited Orchestra; "Little Dreamer" by Van Halen/ The Spirit of Radio" by Rush; "Sunshine of Your Love" (Cream), butchered by Seth Rogen and Creation; "Crossroads" (Cream), performed by Dimension; "White Room" by Cream; "One Step Beyond" by Madness/ C'Etait Toi (You Were the One)," "Rosalinda" and "Don't Ask Me Why" by Billy Joel; "Stomp!" by Brothers Johnson; "18" (Alice Cooper) and "American Band" (Grand Funk Railroad), performed by Dave "Gruber" Allen and Feedback/ Whipping Post" by the Allman Brothers Band; "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" by Journey; "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues; "Lady" by Styx/ Dust in the Wind" by Kansas; "How Funky Is Your Chicken?" performed by McKinley High Cheerleaders; "Keep Yourself Alive" by Queen; "Everybody Wants Some" by Van Halen; "Stranglehold" by Ted Nugent; "Do Ya Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)" by Joan Jett; "Hava Nagila," sung by Samm Levine; "The Song Is Over" by The Who/ Journey to the Center of the Mind" by Amboy Dukes; "No Language in Our Lungs" by XTC; "Theme From Different Strokes" by Al Burton and Gloria Loring; "Overture" by Bill Conti (from Rocky II) / I'm the Man" and "Look Sharp" by Joe Jackson; "Slip Kid" by The Who; "Stomp!" by the Brothers Johnson; "Flamethrower" by the J.Geils Band; "Take the Long Way Home" by Supertramp/ 25 or 6 to 4" (Chicago), "When the Saints Go Marching In" and ["Go, Fight, Win"], performed by McKinley High Marching Band; "Beautiful Loser" by Bob Seger; "Let the Good Times Roll" by the Cars; "Karn Evil #9" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer; "Devil Went Down to Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band; "Amie" by Pure Prairie League; "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd / "Smokin'" by Boston; "Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen; "Hi-De-Ho" by Blood, Sweat and Tears; "Aqualung" by Jethro Tull; "Little Green Bag" by George Baker; "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me" by Mac Davis/"Tom Sawyer" by Rush; "The Monster" by Gene Krupa; "Katmandu" and "You'll Accomp'ny Me" by Bob Seger; "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" by Warren Zevon /"If My Friends Could See Me Now" by Linda Clifford; "Hail to the Chief," performed by McKinley High Band; "Fashion" by David Bowie; "The Road" by Jackson Browne/ "Hot Number" by Foxy; "Box of Rain" and "Ripple" by The Grateful Dead; "I Don't Want to Be a Freak" by Dynasty; "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor; "The Groove Line" by Heatwave; "Space Funk" by Paul Feig Jamie's Crying" and "Ice Cream Man" by Van Halen; "King Tut" by Steve Martin; "Reminiscing" by The Little River Band/ I'm Free," "I'm One," "Boris the Spider," "Love Reign O'er Me," "Squeeze Box," "Goin' Mobile" and "Drowned" by The Who; "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," performed by Jason Segel, James Franco and Seth Rogen; "Lady L," written and performed by Jason Segel; "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts/ Spacefunk" by Paul Feig; "Rise Above" by Black Flag; "Your Phone is Off the Hook But You're Not" by X; "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You" by Dean Martin; "Lime Green," "Happy Street" and "Punk Rock 201," performed by Diesel Boy

[Brad]

I heard through the grapevine that Shout! Factory (the distributors of Freaks And Geeks) may have their sights set on WKRP. I'm not sure how much (or little) truth is in that rumor, though.

[vashti1999]

Originally posted by AKA
I heard through the grapevine that Shout! Factory (the distributors of Freaks And Geeks) may have their sights set on WKRP. I'm not sure how much (or little) truth is in that rumor, though.


Haverchuck!! :rock:

[Brad]

Originally posted by vashti1999
Haverchuck!! :rock: :D <-- Hey, slap a pair of glasses on this guy and he kind of looks like Bill.