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Quoting VibroCount:

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Quoting jgilligan:

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To me, copywrite holders should be happy that they can make some money...  They are doing no further work, and a reasonable royalty should be acceptable.

So someone else gets to determine how much money my creation is worth? And if they don't want to pay me more, they can continue to use it as they choose?

Bah, humbug.

I wrote a paper in 1966. I was (very well) paid for first North American serial rights, yet I still retained copyright (not copywrite... it's the right to vend copies). I sold additional rights to the publication to include the paper in a book they published. We were both happy.

Then, without printing my copyright information on it, a British magazine reprinted it. I sued to obtain my international copyright back. I won. The publisher went (UK style) bankrupt to avoid paying me or the other writers from whom they stole. By my paper being published without a copyright, every publisher in Europe and Asia decided the material was in the public domain. The paper has been reprinted hundreds of times, often without my name, often with edits (which can cange the tone of the paper), and under other people's copyright. I cannot afford to chase them all down. The paper is intact on the internet, without my name.

I've lost all income from it, yet it remains the definitive paper on cheap, highly effective modifications to a weapon of revolution. My work, my research, my skills in writing it, but I no longer make a cent.

Yet I hear it quoted all the time.

I own all the copyrights to everything I've written: manuscripts, music, lyrics, screenplays and teleplays. You wish to use something of mine, you need to pay me. We can negotiate, but I will require my due.

That's how I earn a living.

Why should you continue to make money off my work without continuing to pay me?

I do believe that copyright holders should get paid for their work, I never said otherwise.

What I'm curious about is how much did the copyright holders demand as a royalty or licensing fee for the DVD?  If it was more cost effective for them to re-edit the shows to remove the music, then it MIGHT have been an unreasonable amount.  Re-editing the episodes can't be cheap, especially considering how long that list was the Skip posted.  But, in this case, it must have been cheaper than the fees.

As far as someone else deciding how much your work is worth... sorry, but that is the way of the world.  I can TRY to tell people what I think my work is worth, but the person paying gets to decide.  In this case, the producers of the DVD decided that it wasn't worth what they were asking.  So now the copyright owners don't get anything.  And on top of that, they probably had to pay some legal fees to keep them from using their music.


Maybe I'm just seeing this from the working stiff's point of view.  If I want to make more money, I have to go and do some more work.  I can't just get paid again for work I did last week, or last year.  Copyright holders have an amazing opportunity to continue getting paid for their work long after the work is done.  They aleady agreed to have their music used on the show, they can't rescind that.  Now, the show would like to help them make some more money...  I think I'd take the money!

Now, if the producers of the WKRP DVDs wanted to stiff the copyright holders entirely... Then I agree with their refusal to let them use the music.


And I still think it is quite unfortunate for those of us who would like to see the episodes as they originally aired.  This was one of my favorite shows as I was growing up.  You can't beat the Thanksgiving episode... that was an absolute classic!

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Maybe I'm just seeing this from the working stiff's point of view.  If I want to make more money, I have to go and do some more work.  I can't just get paid again for work I did last week, or last year.  Copyright holders have an amazing opportunity to continue getting paid for their work long after the work is done.  They aleady agreed to have their music used on the show, they can't rescind that.  Now, the show would like to help them make some more money...  I think I'd take the money!

Now, if the producers of the WKRP DVDs wanted to stiff the copyright holders entirely... Then I agree with their refusal to let them use the music.


And I still think it is quite unfortunate for those of us who would like to see the episodes as they originally aired.  This was one of my favorite shows as I was growing up.  You can't beat the Thanksgiving episode... that was an absolute classic!

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I knew a very rich man. He worked with my father at United Air Lines. My Dad was a cabinet maker, building and installing the galleys and dividers in DC-6s, DC-7s, and DC-8s in their San Bruno shops. The rich man was an electrician, running wires and installing lamps. They were both paid the same wage, yet the rich man lived in a home which cost more than $250,000 (in 1955), had three cars, two boats, and a color TV. While he worked at United, he came up with an idea. He submitted the idea to United's employee suggestion program and United liked the idea. They called him in, and advised him to get a lawyer. They sat down, agreeing to take out a patent on his idea in both his name and in United's name. They would pay him more than a million dollars for their participation, and that he would get, as long as the patent lasted, half the royalties off the product, which they would license. The lawyers agreed, and they wrote contracts. The patent was applied for, became pending and was finally approved. All United Airlines planes would have a light of his design on them. It was the white rotating beacon on the vertical stabilizer (in addition to the wingtip lights aircraft were required to have at that time). So for the first few years, he received an additional dollar for every rotating beacon sold. With a year the FAA required the light on every aircraft in the USA, and soon the requirement was world wide. Yes, he made tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. For one sketch, one working model, and a few consulting sessions. His sons & daughter still earn money from his creation. Is that money not fairly earned?

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Quoting VibroCount:

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Should Ted Nugent, Bob Seger, Pink Floyd, Foreigner, Elvis Costello, Brian Wilson, Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, Eddie Money, and their copyright holders never be paid again for the profits the sales of the DVD set makes that they contributed to? If you profit from my work, you need to pay me. I don't care when I performed the work, it still ain't yours.

and these artists will never klnow how much money they LOST in sales due to the fact that If I had bought those DVD's and Heard Foreigner do Hot Blooded,, I would have Ran down to the CD store and anxiously asked the salesman,, Do you know the name of the track that played for 5 seconds on WKRP's episode??
'cause here's my money I want to buy BUY of all of that music..
Now I saved some dough becasue I'll never know the music I came so close in purchasing...


Thank God Ray Manzarek  didn't have clause like that in the Movie Apocalypse Now.. Can you imagine that movie being released on DVD without any Doors Music..????