Part Of Civil Rights Documentary Finally Coming Out On DVD After Years Of Copyright Battling
from the slowly,-but-surely dept
Back in 1988 and 1990, PBS aired the two parts of the seminal documentary Eyes on the Prize about the civil rights movement. Since then, it's been considered one of the best ways of explaining and showing the civil rights struggle to those who did not live through it. Yet, it soon went out of print, and for years there have been fights to get it released on DVD. The problem? You guessed it: copyright. When the original documentary makers made the film they were only able to secure limited licenses for the archival footage they used, and once those licenses expired, the film was effectively dead in the water. For obvious reasons, this greatly upset some people, who started encouraging people to download copies of the film to get it seen -- even if this did upset others who were (loosely) associated with the film, fearing that it would hurt the ongoing negotiations for eventual licensing.While it's taken a long, long time, the good news is that part I of the documentary has finally been released on DVD, even though part II is still tied up in licensing problems. While I can understand why some have been upset in linking the issue of civil rights with copyfighting, this seemed like a perfect example of the problems of copyright law today. Allowing this DVD to go forward would, in no way, "harm" the market for the original archival footage. It was a way to get it much more attention -- on an incredibly important topic that has deserved much greater awareness. To have all that content mostly locked up for nearly two decades is a real shame, and speaks to the censoring power of copyright law.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: civil rights, copyright, documentaries
Companies: pbs
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A thousand years from now
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This also explains why some other video sets are fetching crazy prices on the used market, in VHS format. One in particular you can't even find to watch on the PBS website, and they have no copies for sale - a fantastic documentary series on the history of the Chicano rights movement. The last time I checked, there wasn't even a transcript available. (Most everything PBS has ever produced on the network has a printed transcript available to download for free). There must be a copyright issue holding this one up too. What a disgrace.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Torrent
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This is a common occurance
-Heavy Metal, an animated scifi movie from 1981, was held up from being released on home video for almost 2 DECADES due to copyright issues over the music used in the movie.
-NUMEROUS TV shows are either never released (One episode of Profiler and I think also Pretender) or severely altered from the original (EVERY f-ing episode of WKRP where all the songs had to be changed), all thanks to copy "right."
Books, movies, music, all locked up behind the wall of copyright. Our collective culture and shared memories are being denied to us, in direct abrogation of the copyright bargain, and to the detriment of the public good for the benefit of the wealthy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This is a common occurance
Some artists do this, but we need to see this be the norm, not just repeat the same success stories of Jonathan Coulton and NIN.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Same situation with the original "Beavis & Butthead" as well as "The Young Ones". Music licensing problems caused the dvd editions to be butchered. TYO was so damaged that the storyline actually changed due to the excised music-filled segments.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
OURsceneTV's Pride Exclusive!
http://www.ourscenetv.com/main/show/id/383
[ link to this | view in chronology ]