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Broadcasters vs Producers on Content Integrity
mpawlo writes "I just did a quick write-up for Greplaw on an interesting pending law suit in Sweden. Two Swedish directors, Vilgot Sjoman and Anders Eriksson, are about to file a suit against Swedish broadcaster Tv 4. According to the author's rights or droit moral doctrine, the work may not be displayed or changed in a way degrading to the author or the author's work. Tv 4 has just changed its policy for commercial breaks. Breaks are now introduced during movies. The commercial breaks used to be placed between the end and start of a program.
The directors argue the breaks are degrading from an artistical point of view. They want to try the commercial breaks in court from a copyright perspective."
Films tend to be worse affected by breaks in the middle than TV progs, which are designed with it in mind.
graspee
Its nice to see people standing up for their content, and fighting advertisements.
This story made me think, could our producers sue Digital Cable for degrading the quality? (ask any time warner digital cable subscriber what 'digital picture' means, anyone with a clue will tell you it means 'lossy compression used to squeeeze in a bunch of extra channels)
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Nice sweeping generalization there. How many films are pure art and were not made to bring a profit ? Not too many, though I have seen a few Swedish films and they were a cut above Hollywood in the "bread and circuses" dept.
graspee
Anyone producing a TV show that is intended to have commercial breaks is either a) not an artist, or b) a corporate whore, degrading themselves for money.
Hmm. I think they may be onto something here.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Here in Norway, they sometimes put news&weather in the middle of movies, because they aren't allowed to put commercial breaks in movies. Also this would stop the network's self-promotion in the middle of movies (basicly a commercial for the later shows of the evening), equally annoying but usually shorter though.
But I suppose if this goes through as a general precendent in copyright law, the movie producers will simply get a lower prices for movies that they can't break up. Nothing like sacrificing "artistic integrity" for a bit more money...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The directors argue the breaks are degrading from an artistical point of view. They want to try the commercial breaks in court from a copyright perspective.
Over here they insert bits of movies between the commercials.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
The article states:
If the protection the authors claim is grounded in European law, why are the London-based stations safe from it? Why aren't they bringing the case before the EU courts at once?
Apparently they think the EU courts wouldn't outlaw commercial breaks during movies, which are pretty normal. One Dutch station (SBS6) actually goes so far as to have an entire 30-minute program in between the first and second halves of a film... I *hate* that.
So it seems that Swedish courts are being stricter on interpretation of EU law than the rest of the EU. I doubt that's a good thing.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
That's funny, oh those crazy Swedes. I can't even fathom a two hour movie that hasn't been 'compressed for time, content, commercials.' I mean, after all the reductions, my god man, how would you fill the other 80 mins.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Note it's talking about a movie, which are usually not intended to have commercials in it, and not a regular tv show.
If the US did commercials like England I think our shows would be much different. At least half of all commercials in US TV merely act to delay a moment of suspense. The show leaves off and picks up at the exact same moment in this case. The commercials are not merely in between scenes, but there to entrap you to watch at least part of the commercials so that you don't miss the pick up.
How much different would our TV be without this? better? worse? the same?
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Basically, this would mean that the TV execs would have to pay the director to wave his right for his movie to not be interupted by commercials. Otherwise, the movies would not be shown at all, and neither side wants that- particularly the director.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Would this mean that a commercial broadcast television show would have the artist's rights violated if the commercials are removed for distribution on DVD? It would seem that a broadcast commercial television program would have a producer creating an artistic product with commercial breaks in mind. Removing the commercials could interfere with that artistic vision. I watched many shows that have used the commercial break for dramatic pause.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
or MPAA will require commercials on all TV-series DVDs to preserve the huge profi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H artistic vision...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Artists don't control the money, producers and the networks hold more sway. If you can't put a commercial break into a movie, you've got to make a shorter movie!
The whole entire point of TV programming is to sell advertisements...period. It hasn't changed in 40+ years.
Anyone who licenses content to a TV station thinking they won't run ads during it is just plain stupid. The TV station doesn't give a crap- they'll run a film from a director who isn't a space case instead.
We are already seeing commercials at the beginning of a movie at the theater. We've paying a premium price to watch a movie, and they are forcing us to sit through three commercials as well?
Next thing we know, we'll be watching a movie that we paid $10 a peice to go see, and having to sit through advertisements for "refreshing Coca Cola and Popcorn at the snackbar"
This is absurd!
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
I always thought that those damn logos in the corner of the screen networks put in should be treated as unauthorized modification of the work being displayed, and hence be considered a copyright enfringment.
Might finally get rid of those stupid things once and for all...
AC comments get piped to
IIRC, when Bergman's The Lie (abridged, but edited by Bergman from the Swedish version) played on US commercial TV some thirty years ago, it was broadcast without commercial breaks -- because it was in Bergman's contract.
As a former player/writer in TV/movies, I can assure you that for the last twenty years in the US, the writers/artists have had no rights about `artistical' matters; the producers now expect the TV/Cable/International revenues to cover their production costs, and they have the paperwork drawn up to give them the greatest prof-- um, er, flexibility to package and sell the project after initial theatrical runs.
I know nothing about European artistic license/law -- and from reading this article, I want nothing to do with it. It sounds completely absurd to me. As I understand the article with regards to the use of a religious song in the tree-f*cking scene in I am Curious (Yellow), Kubric would have needed the song writer's permission to use Singin' in the Rain as compellingly as he did in A Clockwork Orange.
If you want artistic control over your project, get it in writing like Bergman or form your own production company like Fritjof Capra did for Mind Walk.
BTW, there is a so-called `director's cut' on some DVDs because the director usually does not even decide what is in the final version of the film in most cases. Sometimes the director of a film is not even invited in for the editing -- and the writer almost never is.
Perhaps this story illustrates the difficulty Europen cinema has competing with the US variety as much as it does a real trend in European artistic rights.
It -is- afterall an expression of the company of which comercials to air, and when.... Like perhaps overall the comercials, are funny, or political, or downright serious
One thing slashdot has covered before and I am starting to see a lot of in movies is digital editing. For example, I was watching Tin Cup on TBS yesterday. Towards the end of the movie, at the majors, on the last hole, there is a big banner for CBS sports. You *can't* miss it. It is big black letters on a yellow banner. Well, TBS edited it out. All it is now is a big yellow hole. In a few shots where you only see a corner of it, you still see the text, but in the wide shots - NOTHING. How long until that says "Watch Atlanta Braves Baseball" ??
Then I was watching a hockey game and I noticed how all the adds on the walls were changing. I thought that was kinda strange since Ive only seen them painted on. But then I saw the adds ON the ice change. Turns out none of the in stadium adds are broadcast, just ones from the networks. What the HELL is that? I would be pissed if I bought that advertisement spot!
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For the curious, a FAQ on moral rights and their place in U.S. law is here.
In short, U.S. law provides very little moral rights protection, except for visual fine art.
"The directors argue the breaks are degrading from an artistical point of view."
This concept is so foreign in the United States I'm not sure if anyone will get it.
Other than when we pay (in theater, premium channels on cable, renting movies) we Americans are rarely exposed to commercial free anything. And not just on television. There's advertising everywhere.
A few years ago I taught in Finland and was impresssed by the fact that the "Government office of whatever..." mandated that movies broadcast over (the peoples!!!) airwaves could only have one (two?) commercial break, had to be uncut, and with the exception of children's titles, had to be subtitled (the 'no cheesy dubbing' law). The subtitling provision even applies to theaters.
It was wonderful.
To any Europeans reading this post - can you imagine watching the mini-series version of Das Boot (running time over five hours) on American television - 20 minutes of commercials per hour would bring the running time to eight hours. Our (Americans') collective attention span is currently about eight seconds - I suspect that American television networks have played a large part in this. In addition, imagine watching a deep movie that is interrupted with a commercial that's narrative starts out with, "Painful, burning vaginal itch...." I'm not making this up - this is an actual commercial here that runs during prime time on national networks.
I feel a rant coming on, so I'll end with this - Europeans might not know the value of a law like this because they have not been exposed to the unrelenting onslaught of advertising that is American Television.
Americans might not know the value of a law like this because we have not been exposed to the bliss that is commercial free movies and sporting events. Well, except for the eight or ten of us who watched the World Cup.
microrant And God Dammit!!!! I had to stop watching the World Series last night (kept the sound on though) because of the fscking inserted ads right in the pitch trajectory - you MUST read the ad on every goddamn pitch, and it changes every half inning. FUCK I HATE THOSE THINGS.
/microrant
Sorry.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
I have a question.
How does European law define "integrity?"
The term can be used to refer to the wholeness or completeness of a work, unaltered from its original state, or the term can be used to refer to moral (in this case, artistic) values. So EU copyright law applies to the author's artistic intent?
This brings up some of the same vagueness the term "authenticity" possesses.
Breaking up a movie to insert commercial breaks is mildly irritating. On-screen "bugs" are somewhat more intrusive. On-screen "bugs" that pop up to advertise another program are worse. On-screen ads that include a bell or other sound effect are worse still. However, on-screen ads that take up the entire screen and deliberately try to distract you from the film have got to be over the line.
That's what TNT started doing a few years ago. In particular, I remember one ad for an awards show of some sort, in which a "spotlights" would suddenly wave across the screen, then converge on the ad at the bottom. My interest in TNT had been declining ever since they fired Joe Bob, but those new ads were the last straw -- I changed the channel, and I haven't look back since.
Anyway, although I was surprised that TNT would make such a concerted effort to drive away viewers, I was even more suprised that the filmmakers would let them. A movie with those graphics superimposed clearly constitutes a derivative work, not just a performance of the original. Even a relatively flexible director wouldn't stand for that.
Of course, it's up to the copyright holder, which, in TNT's case, is almost always AOL. (In fact, AOL seems to hold most copyrights, period.) The more TV stations are able to run content that they own, the more freedom they have to do this sort of thing. It's just another consequence of the media oligopoly.
MSK
How much different would our TV be without this? better? worse? the same?
- and-we-need-to-break-for-another-commercial-now-so -we'll-make-something-up" breaks.
You know, without the possibility of breaking to commercials for suspense, they might actually have to make some suspense *in* the show. Outside the US (few have as many commerical breaks as they do) you see the (extra) fade-out/fade-ins designed for commercials, only without the commercials, and you realize just how artifical that suspense really is.
And personally, my feeling is that it *breaks* the suspense more than holds or builds it, particularly those dark and gloomy series/movies, only to get 5 mins of shampoo commericals.
Not to mention the "umm-we-have-no-real-suspense-here-but-time-is-up
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
A noun: art.
Noun turned into an adjective: if something has the quality of art, it is artistic.
Adjective turned into a redundant adjective to add more syllables so the author sounds smarter: artistical.
Hey, let's turn it back into a noun by adding more syllables! How about artisticalness?
Same thing with symmetrical. If something has symmetry (noun) it is symmetric (adjective). WTF does "symmetrical" mean that "symmetric" doesn't?
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
... they're called commericals
Infuriate left and right
here in the Netherlands we have quite a bit of advertising on the commercial (non-public) stations. Not as much as in the US, but the thing is that advertising time on the commercial stations is very expensive, so you tend to see good quality commercials
Yeah, especially this one:
http://mjfrazer.org/~mjfrazer/movies/dutch.qt
After thinking, "What kind of sick...." I spewed milk through my nose when I saw the end of the commercial.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
One of the ways of doing a direct controlled comparision is to pick up the DVD of a television show and compare the experience to watching it on television without commercials.
So far, I've purchased all the Stargate SG-1 available in the US, and my wife has purchased the two seasons of Friends. Bearing in mind that neither of us is particularly fond of the other show, we both agree that both are significantly more enjoyable on DVD, with no commercials to interfere.
Even after 60+ (?) years of adapting to commercials, they still do nothing but get in the way of the program. I even kinda like Friends on DVD, even though I don't care much for it on TV. Even with the TiVo, it's not the same; the interruption is serious.
A simple, controlled experiment you can do on your own. I won't conclude that television would be better without commercials, but I do think we'd all enjoy it more, and that the best theature in that world would exceed the best in the advertising world we live in now.
When I was studying in England in 1991, I went to the "art house" movie theater fairly often but rarely went to the regular theaters. When I did I was surprised that there were TV-style commericals as well as trailers before the movie started. I thought, "this sucks! I'm glad we don't have those in the U.S." Now we have them here as well (can't remember when they started here, 2-3 years ago?). The worst have been those Pepsi ads with the "cute" girl. The worst was the Western themed one which combined hawking with warnings about not talking during the movie or smoking. It was only used by Regal Theaters in my area and I was so sick of it, I would go to a competitor (Cinemark) to avoid it. Judging by often often I heard laughter during the stupid thing, annoying frequent patrons isn't a big concern for them.
Some videos have commercials as well but this appears to not have caught on yet.
It's particularly obvious when you get an American show shown on one of the Terrestrial channels in the UK (where you cannot have more than 7min/hour advertising) or on the BBC, where you don't get any commercials. It always seemed to be most obvious in Babylon 5 - they'd have some tense moment in the plot come up (spaceship charging up weapons...) and then fade to black, fade up to black and essentially re-play the last bit of footage before continuing. It makes sense if you've got a commercial in there but is quite odd if you haven't. Luckily not all shows are quite as blantant with it...
Do you think the screenplay writer(s) of say - friends or survivors designed their scripts with commercials in mind?
Yes.
End of story.
(Actually, it's even more obvious when you watch American TV shows here in Europe. You can see _so_ _clearly_ where advertising is meant to go in those shows, only it doesn't over here.)
Shouldn't it be paying the studio? The studio is (usually) the one that actually owns the rights to the movie, after all. If the director can automatically have so much control, you may as well have actors and special effects artists also demanding artistic authority over the display of anything and everything that they had a part in producing.
Irrespective of the super-star status often given to directors, they're still contracted to a studio. If the director wants artistic control then it should be one of the conditions specified in his or her contract, and it should be up to the studio to enforce that requirement down the chain.
pay the director to wave his right for his movie
Er, `wave his rights' is what he would do when his rights drive away in the back of a van, on a trip to the beach for a day.
'waive his rights', on the other hand, is what the people of the world do when governments start ranting about terrorists.
I aim to sit down between 20:10 and 20:20 (earlier if there is a good trailer expected like LOTR). It is trivial to arrive at the right time. And since I generally sit in the front row I don't have to step over people.
I actually miss intervals; generally I go to the loo in the quiet "emotion" scene near the end of Act 2 where they say nothing of importance :-)
So use 'artsy' instead of 'artistically' ... :)
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
On a tangent - since a majority of posts mentions American media - I'm wondering if there is a trend towards commercial-free television in the US.
Already, soccer in the US is broadcast without commercial breaks, but that's not really a good example since noone watches it.
But supposedly, next years US Masters (golf) will be broadcast entirely witouth commercial breaks and in-game endorsments ("leaderboard presented by Dodge - Dodge, where do you want to pollute today?"). This is a side effect of the arranging club not wanting to admit women and therefore losing sponsors etc, but that's not the point. This commercial-free block of programming is actually presented as a really positive thing for the viewers.
And this fall FOX will be broadcasting their hit series 24 - which is a one-hour (i.e. 50 minutes) show - entirely without commercials. Presented by blablabla but anyway.
I wondering if this will catch on, I sure hope so.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
here in the Netherlands we have quite a bit of advertising on the commercial (non-public) stations. Not as much as in the US, but the thing is that advertising time on the commercial stations is very expensive, so you tend to see good quality commercials.
Also less chance of ads being simply overplayed. Though, no doubt, there are still cases where the ads don't appear to make much sense in the context of either the programme or the other ads.
Do you think the screenplay writer(s) of say - friends or survivors designed their scripts with commercials in mind ?
These programmes are written to conform with whatever ad scheduling is common, in the US, when ther were written.
The problem has more to do with the audience "not being used to something". With TV shows, we are used to seeing them with commercials when there are options to watch movies without breaks on DVDs and tapes.
Movies are not written with ad breaks in mind, the only assumption with the typical movie is that the whole thing will be about an hour and an half long.
Do they ever? I mean, sure they're targetted towards certain audiences which are watching the current show, but they certainly don't seem to be made relating to other commercials or the current show.
Cheers,
Costyn.
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I mean, sure they're targetted towards certain audiences which are watching the current show,
In theory, it's not too hard to find examples to make you think: "What rational person would assume that anyone watching programme X would want to buy product Y."