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NBC Erases SNL Sketch From Digital Archive For Fear of Copyright Lawsuit
M.Nunez writes with a tale of copyright woes. From the article: "The digital 'Saturday Night Live' archive does not feature a recent Bruno Mars sketch because it includes impersonations of pop singers and their chart-topping hits. Bruno Mars sings several songs that are not owned by NBC, so it can be presumed that the company refrained from uploading the sketch into its digital archive to avoid any legal issues. Convoluted music licensing laws have essentially erased the Bruno Mars sketch from the digital archives of SNL. In the short comedy sketch, Bruno Mars impersonates vocal performances by Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day), Steven Tyler (Aerosmith), Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Louis Armstrong, and Michael Jackson. The sketch cannot be found on NBC.com or Hulu, as a short clip or in either full editions of the episode."
SNL regularly doesn't post sketches that involve music in some way. Even if they can defend themselves with fair use, a lawyer probably decided it's simply not worth the hassle for the ad revenue it generates.
"The digital 'Saturday Night Live' archive does not feature a recent Bruno Mars sketch because it includes impersonations of pop singers and their chart-topping hits.
This is the problem with proprietary archives - the host gets to decide what goes in. Someone should go out and invent a distributed system where people can store files locally but share them with anyone else who is interested. If you cut the file into little pieces, you could even get the file from a bunch of other people simultaneously, cutting down the time and sharing the burden. All you'd need would be someone who agrees to record TV shows off the air, then compress and share the files. Admittedly this system relies a lot on volunteers, but it just might work.
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7747455/Saturday.Night.Live.S38E05.Bruno.Mars.720p.HDTV.x264-BAJSKORV_%5BP
It happened.
It was pretty good I guess. I think the point of this article is to highlight how ridiculous this has all become. Parody is ALWAYS protected and he mixed up the words [ostensibly] as a form of parody expression. But rather than fight about it, they [too] would rather give up and give in.
They can't even be civil among themselves, so what hope to we, the little people, have in dealing with this bastards?
Maybe NBC and it's parent corporation realized the original parody was fair use. They redacted it from the archives because they don't want bots sending DMCA notices and they don't want to take them to court and argue fair use.
Luckily we have copyright to protect the artists like Louis Armstrong and Michael Jackson. Otherwise they would just stop making music.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
As God is my witness, I thought WKRP syndication would fly.
to preserve artistic performances for future generations. Because the Big Four will never release footage of many performances (either because it isn't worth their while, or they are so scared that pirates will record and distribute for free or below cost). Really, such as VHS tapes made from 16mm film transfers of performances such as Jayne Mansfield playing the violin and another of her playing the piano on the Ed Sullivan show (yes, she really could play those instruments). A few people have copies of this (but they keep low profile to avoid attention from the Music And Film Industries Association), not sure if they ever will post on youtube (probably be taken down anyway). I've looked and see if Sullivan estates has this on DVD, apparently not as only sell Elvis, Beatles, Beach Boys. There are many other artists and music but have faded into obscurity, but probably be rediscovered by a 20-something musician rummaging through sheet music saved by some old timer from the 20th century. They will read the notes, thinking this is a brilliant piece of work and make a change in melody and release it as a "new" hit.
mfwright@batnet.com