Slashdot Mirror
CBS Refuses To Preserve Jack Benny Footage
goosman writes "The president of the International Jack Benny Fan Club had the opportunity to review some holdings of the CBS vaults while assisting them with some transfers. In the vaults she found 25 shows on film that were unreleased, but in the public domain. The IJBFC offered to pay for the digitization and preservation of these shows; they got a letter of enthusiastic support from the Benny estate. CBS has so far refused to allow this preservation to happen." BoingBoing and TechDirt have both covered this act of cultural destruction.
I think the appropriate is:
(long pause) WELL!
Perhaps the federal government could appropriate the masters via eminent domain and make them available through the Library of Congress.
...by copyright, as long as CBS owns the only copies they control it and it is, therefor, not in the public domain. The copies are their property to do with as they see fit.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
CBS claims that there could be music clearance problems--which is an entirely legitimate possibility. The episodes are probably public domain because when they were made copyrights had to be renewed and there's little chance they were renewed. But if the music came from any outside source, it's quite possible that they *did* renew it, leaving the music in copyright today--and leaving CBS liable for serious damages in court if they just give the episodes to some fans to copy. Blame the copyright system, but do not blame CBS.
This is a problem with the current copyright system as well. There is no mandate that a copy be put on file with the Library of Congress so that when the copyright does expire, someone might have access to it.
By my calculations, the copyright on Windows 1.0 expires in 2080. Do you think anyone will have a binary sitting around, much less the source to that program at that date? Highly doubtful.
The thing is that they never distributed them. That's like saying that Abraham Lincoln's estate is legally required to make all of his private journals available to you.
I agree that's its a dick move to keep these works locked up, but I think that it would be dangerous to Force people to make their out-of-copyright works available. Copyright provides powerful tools to entities to control their creative works, but some protection is needed afterwards. If I created something privately, then no one should be able to compel me to release just because its copyright is up. Yes, if they have a copy of the work, then they are free to do what they want with it. It's sort of like the GPL; you don't have to opensource your changes, unless you distribute it. If you keep it private, then it's fine. That's how I feel about this; if they want to keep it private, that's fine.
Again, I wouldn't do the same thing if I were in their position, but I certainly understand why they do it.
Pity Johnny Carson is also dead. He and Benny were extremely close, and he would have raised holy hell over this. And the dude had a lot of clout.
Can't get outraged, though. Media conglomerates have already used up most of my outrage, and I want to save what's left for genocide, the Republican party, and other serious stuff.
Your point is well taken if you automatically assume that everything is copyrighted. It technically is today, but not in practice.
Lincoln's estate should not be required to make his journals available because he never sought copyright protection for them. Same goes for your private works.
CBS did seek such protections for their works, therefore, they should be required to make them available if they are the only copies in existence.
If you want the power of copyright, you must release your works (that's the point of copyright), and should be required to make a copy on demand if your copy is the only one available. Preferably we'd have a copy on file at the Library of Congress, but we're not there yet.
What an age we live in when this is modded "informative".
Grow up, this has nothing to do with copyright law.
TFA even says that they're in the public domain. The only thing stopping anyone from preserving this stuff is the fact that the only copies in existence are owned by CBS. CBS owns the medium on which these things are stored and they are perfectly within their rights, even if the constitution prohibited any sort of copyright whatsoever, to refuse to give them to anyone for any reason they damned well feel like.
They're not refusing the right to copy the work(they can't) they're refusing to hand over tape reels which they own to someone else. It's not the right thing for them to do, but it is within their rights, and would be within their rights even if intellectual property were outlawed.
These informative mods always make me imagine a moderator sitting stunned behind a monitor: "Of course! CBS could be composed of horses!
[clever sig]