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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
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
c) A person who realizes that if there are no commercials, there is no program, and that the program should be designed to minimize the negative effect of the commercials on the program. Designing the program so that the commercials don't come in at annoying times is fighting the damage that commercials do, not helping it.
Well, that includes just about all TV producers in the US. But generally, sitcoms (if not dramas as well) switch between scenes frequently, and nearly all of those switches are good spots for commercial breaks.
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.
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.
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!
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
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
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.)