Slashdot Mirror
BBC Unveils Newly Discovered Dr.Who Episodes
BigBadBus writes "Putting an end to months of speculation, the BBC announced at a press conference today that it had recovered 9 previously lost episodes of Dr.Who, from the Patrick Troughton era (1966-69). The episodes complete 'The Enemy of the World' and almost complete 'The Web of Fear' (leaving one episode outstanding). The episodes were found in a relay station in Nigeria by Phillip Morris; previously Nigeria had been checked and had returned 6 lost episodes in 1984. The episodes are now available from UK and US iTune stores and can be for pre-ordered from Amazon.co.uk"
and now they want to charge for them. Making them available via Bittorrent would be the moral choice.
Suppose a person taped that missing episode at that time for themselves. Would they get a share of the profit they make for archiving their stuff for 50 years or would they be prosecuted for theft if they came forward? Copyright is very strange. I suppose it depends on the local laws. It seems there is a statute I recall from grade school called "Finders keepers, losers weepers".
If I recall correctly from the previous Dr. Who story on here, the episodes fall to the public domain 50 years after their production (so 2016-2019 for these episodes). So BBC is capitalizing on the last few years when they can make money off these. Yes, I'm disappointed too but not the least bit shocked.
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/13/10/03/2232213/first-few-doctor-who-episodes-may-fall-to-public-domain-next-year?sdsrc=popbyskid
Having "lost" the episodes turns out to be lucrative for them, perhaps...... if they ever find them, they can make a killing selling them for $$$
You think a person having taped the episode, will have a high enough quality rendition for them to use? I doubt it.
The final episode of The IT Crowd aired two weeks ago. Did that make the Slashdot frontpage?
Oh my goodness I'm freaking out and waving my hands like a schoolgirl right now.
But seriously, the Web of Fear is one of my favorite classic Doctor Who episodes, despite the fact that the only available version is almost entirely an audio reconstruction with still-photograph accompaniment. Notably, this episode is where the much beloved stiff-upper-lip character Lethbridge-Stewart is first introduced. He is of course instantly recognizable even as part of an audio-only soundtrack.
As much as I enjoyed the 3rd (Jon Pertwee) and 4th (Tom Baker) Doctors, like everyone else, I'd go so far as to say that many of the 1st (William Hartnell) and 2nd (Patrick Troughton) Doctors' episodes were some of the most interesting and entertaining of the entire series, just as many of the most original and memorable episodes of Star Trek and TNG came during their first and second seasons. The more I watch the older episodes of Doctor Who the more I appreciate what they accomplished, especially in the context of the fact that the series started out in 1963 in seriously grainy black and white as basically a televised live-action play. So finding more old episodes is a big thing for me. I love 'em.
I'm also one of those weirdos who thinks the most recent few seasons of the show are boot-licking, Doctor-worshiping, ultra-melodramatic, vomit-inducing crap that caused Doctor Who to go from one of my favorite shows of all time to something I cannot physically stomach watching anymore. But I digress.
Hooray for more classic Doctor Who!
Any quality is better than no quality.
By about 11.50pm GMT the news had broken and links to iTunes gone up. Amazon links a short time later and then YouTube material. I put the iTunes and Amazon pre-order links on my website (see link in my signature)
Sadly, I think the following quote from the BBC shows their contempt for us. This is from one of the papers that broke the embargo:
"Asked whether viewers might also see the recovered episodes, without having to pay Apple £1.89 per episode or £9.99 to download the complete stories, BBC Worldwide said licence-fee payers had already enjoyed a chance to watch the programmes in the late 60s"
Don't they realise that WE might have wanted to watch this stuff again at some point?
My web domain.
I think that the really old copies were going to run out of copyright soon. So they'll do some slight something to the copies, like retouching a background every 5minutes or resychronizing some coughs, and voila, copyright reregistration.
Except for such trickery, the old copies will be up on bittorrent or elsewhere, legally as copyright law intended pretty soonish. Music publishers like to do that sort of thing. They are printing from old plates engraved and copyrighted a century ago or so, but stamp in some additional fingerings or whatever, and voila: new "revised" edition, new "copyright".
Let's see how this ends up.
So, I am an american 25 year old cs student. Why should I watch this show and/or how can I convince my lady to watch it with me?
Oh, don't worry, they'll just extend the copyright term as they did for Mickey or Beatles. I mean there is still money to be made.
If I recall correctly from the previous Dr. Who story on here, the episodes fall to the public domain 50 years after their production (so 2016-2019 for these episodes). So BBC is capitalizing on the last few years when they can make money off these. Yes, I'm disappointed too but not the least bit shocked.
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/13/10/03/2232213/first-few-doctor-who-episodes-may-fall-to-public-domain-next-year?sdsrc=popbyskid
Are they releasing the lost episodes verbatim, or is some remastering involved? And if they are remastered, does that constitute a new original copyrightable work?
"'does anyone know,what ian levine,plans to do about the recovery of missing episodes,i myself have been considering,a little overseas travel, i work overseas and i think by traveling to some or even all countrys and searching ,is maybe the best way now,of finally putting the rumours,and stories to rest,if its there lets go there,and ask politely it can do no harm,who knows i might turn up a thing or two'
'yes i see your point,i have contacted the restoration team,and offered my services,free at no cost to them ,whatsoever,but i have had no reply.you are perfectly right the beeb themselves should do this,but they dont seem to want to know,official paperwork and authorisation,from the beeb would have been great,but if not forthcoming i will go it alone with whatever ,background information i can find and see were it leads me,any help from anyone interested will be much appreciated,to all fans i will give it my best shot for dr who'"
For those not in the know, Ian Levine is a superfan, who saved many of the early episodes from destruction and found many others. The above appeared on a forum dedicated to discussing missing episodes, and is partially run by BBC staff members some of whom restore the old episodes for DVD release. Apart from Ian Levine, everyone wrote him off. The BBC didn't seem to want to know. But if the story is right, he must have managed to acquire some paperwork to show how the episodes had been cycled round the world; when one TV station had finished with them, they would be sent to another one to reduce costs of producing new episodes from the negatives.
Another thing I'd like to mention. In 1984 the BBC and Levine contacted old foreign TV markets who had bought the early years of the show to find lost episodes. Most stations didn't bother to reply; 6 did come back from Nigeria (the newly found episodes were from a relay station so its not surprising they were missed) and one from Australia. Iran said "Who in the name of Allah are you talking about?" But as Phillip Morris has shown, you need to go over there and physically sift through the paperwork and film cans. Expecting an overworked archivist to do it isn't going to work, especially if the documentation of what they have is fragmentary. But I do wonder what other "lost" TV shows were found sitting on the shelf. When Dr.Who has been found in the past, other TV has usually come back, but it is rarely, if ever reported. This makes TV historians fury with despair, as the archival side of things is so Dr.Who-centric.
Normally, the episodes should have been returned to England when they had been shown an agreed number of times, or destroyed. Happily this isn't the case. I'm not too surprised that they were overlooked. My dad worked in Nigeria from about 1968-72 and I was born there. He says they are slovenly and corrupt. That's not being racist, that is what they are like over there, from his personal experience (like one local member of the Lagos glitterati who paid off the police to stop criminal proceedings after he nearly killed my mum in a speedboat accident). And yes my dad does recall Dr.Who being shown in Nigeria!
My web domain.
(Please read the following in CAPITALS)
Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you. I have the believe you are a reputable and responsible and trustworthy person I can do business with from the little information so far I gathered about you during my search for a partner and by matter of trust I must not hesitate to confide in you for this simple and sincere business.
I am Stella Morris 19 years of age the only daughter of late Mr Phillip Morris whom was killed by the daleks that attacked our country Nigeria and took over our town. I ran to Lagos the economical capital of nigeria from were I am contacting you. Before the death of my father he told me that he has a sum of DWE 9.000,000 (Nine point one million Doctor Who Episodes) kept in a private cloud here in nigeria in my name as the next of kin,
Dear, in the capacity of the next of kin and with all the tapes in my hand now, I am contacting you with due sence of gallifreyanity that you will give it a sympathetic and mutual consideration.
I am honourably seeking your assistance in the following ways.
(1)To serve as the guardian of this drama and to come assist me visit the television company here to retrive the consignment.
(2)To make arrangement for me to come over to your country by tardis to further my education and to secure a residential permit for me in your country.
(3)To provide good viewing plans for the tapes and to manage the tapes for 5 years, during the viewing period,only our profit will be shared annually 70% for me the iTunes account holder while 30% will be for you the manager annually.
Moreover, I am willing to offer you 11 % of the total tapes (1 (one) episode) as compensation for your effort /input after the successful transfer of this video to your nominated iTunes account overseas, before the viewing starts.
Anticipating hearing from you immediately.
Thanks, and would you like a jelly baby?
Best Regards.
Stella Morris
So we'll see DVD's of the series or streams from netflix soon?
if they add something to it then yes.
The broadcasted version(or rather copy of the broadcasting) is the one that goes out of copyright.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Is it more moral to make the public (license payers) pay more in order to give these episode away free, or is it better to draw more of their revenue from rich fans who will buy these old episodes? It's not like BBC lawyers are launching lawsuits against downloaders anyway.
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>You think a person having taped the episode, will have a high enough quality rendition for them to use? I doubt it.
They've done a lot of work on previous DVD releases repairing and restoring from multiple sources. One series was reconstructed using a B&W film copy for the detail with the colour from a betamax home recording. End result was pretty good.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
They were found by a 3rd party commercial firm who specialise in finding lost footage. The BBC would have had to pay them then cover the cost of restoration/remastering etc.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
... sounds like something from a Dr Who plot line.
Microsoft re-discovers Dr. Watson.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
That is like saying we should be given DVDs for free.
The licence pays for LIVE-AT-BROADCAST only, not everything else.
This is what infuriates me even more than BBC weren't allowed a payments system on iPlayer because some stupidity like this post.
No chance of watching anything from the entirety of BBC history now without having to fork over for DVDs. THANKS.
iPlayer is an archive, just like this is. Archives aren't covered. People still need to pay for archives.
You think a person having taped the episode, will have a high enough quality rendition for them to use? I doubt it.
I've seen some of the other 'found' episodes and the quality is quite bad, yes.
Real fans only...
No sig today...
Dear Respected One,
GREETINGS,
Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you. I got your contact from the International web site directory. I prayed over it and selected your name among other names due to it's esteeming nature and the recommendations given to me as a reputable and trust worthy person I can do business with and by the recommendations I must not hesitate to confide in you for this simple and sincere business.
I am Wumi Abdul; the only Daughter of late Mr and Mrs George Abdul. My father was a very passionate sci-fi lover in Lagos,the largest city of Nigeria before he was poisoned to death by his nerd friend on one of their outing to discus what movie to see. When my mother died on the 21st October 1984, my father took me and my younger brother HASSAN special because we are motherless. Before the death of my father on 30th June 2002 in a private hospital here in Lagos, he secretly called me on his bedside and told me that he has a set of very rare Dr. Who episodes left in a safe deposite box in a local bank here in Lagos, that he used my name as his first Daughter for the next of kin for the safe.
He also explained to me that it was because of these episodes he was poisoned by his nerd friend, that I should seek for a R. Daneel Olivaw fearing foreign partner in a country of my choice where I will transfer these episodes and use it for the good of humanity. Sir, we are honourably seeking your assistance in the following ways.
1) To provide money in order for me to pay for the releasing and shipping of these episodes to you
2) To serve as the guardian of this incredible treasure since I am a girl of 26 years who can't understand the subtlety of sci-fi.
Moreover Sir, we are willing to offer you a rebate of 15% of the sum as compensation if you send money before the next two days. Please feel free to contact ,me via this email address BBC-scam@yahoo.com
Anticipating to hear from you soon.
Thanks and God Bless.
Best regards.
Miss Wumi Abdul
BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC is selling them. Their profits, believe or not, go right back in to the BBC! Why don't we just start giving away DVD's of the Top Gear while we are at too?
Finally, we know what is Nigeria supposed to be good for. Now I know where to store my collection of old books that nobody is interested in anymore until someone starts being interested in it again.
Ezekiel 23:20
They are a commercial company, morals don't come into it. If they did, they'd look at doing something for the greater good, and therefore selling these things to raise funds to make more shows seems best for fans, yes?
What you fail to realise, when taking this "our money" stance, is the money SAVED by throwing them away.
Dear friend
I represent estate of famous TV producer. I need help getting box of Dr Who film to BBC. They pay big bucks ...
Enjoy!
Dr Poo
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/.
Now, admittedly, it's hardly a complete archive and the selection is a bit crap, but you don't have to pay for it.
this.
bootleg trader here
I highly doubt they would be prosecuted just for coming forward. Going after someone for taping a show for their own use would be massively bad PR. If they started selling copies I'm pretty sure the BBCs lawyers would be onto them very quickly.
Not sure what would happen if they put it on bittorrent or similar.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
The biggest problem I have is with them putting them on iTunes store first.. The episodes were paid with public money so there shouldn't be an exclusive deal with one provider.. The episodes should even be available for free at least through the BBC iPlayer/website..
You're confusing the BBC with BBC Worldwide - the latter is the commercial arm of the BBC, which means if they want to sell DVDs, they can sell DVDs. Yes, the profits do go into the BBC itself, but if that keeps the licence fee down, then I'm all for it.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
THE BBC has paid for home copies on 8mm in the past. They're happy to have them back.
I think, by the end of the day, they WILL be available on bit torrent. So I wouldn't worry.
The BBC has also been recovering color information from the dot crawl that was recorded on the B&W telecines they had of many episodes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_recovery
I don't care much for Dr Who, but this is another reason to oppose DRM and be cautious about streaming. If the producers can't be trusted to keep a copy of their works, it's up to the audience to do the archiving. Some works may not be considered popular or good, but may later have a huge cult (or mainstream, in this case) following
Yes, they managed to get the colour information back from 11 episodes, but strangely it was rather weak and needed a fair amount of extra work to enhance it. Even so, the results, while usually good, are variable in places. At the start of episode 2 of the Mind of Evil, the flesh tones of Jo and The Doctor seemed to be "flashing" for want of a better word. And when people move, there is sometimes a trail of multicoloured mess left behind them. Still, some colour is better than no colour. If you don't like it, turn it off :)
My web domain.
How would they have taped it, did they have a time machine? The entire problem is that this was before VHS so virtually the only copies were the ones BBC destroyed.
I don't recall every paying any British taxes. Perhaps it is just to charge for some (despite the fact that I would love to have them for free).
I'm not 100% sure of how it works in Britain, but I think the way it works is that there is a tax/fee on recording media that then gets passed to an organization that dishes out the money to copyright holders based on a measure of popularity. If you bought a blank VHS tape you have already payed for the right to make copies of any video content that you have obtained legally. The terms of use for those copies are pretty strict, but they are legal.
If a person made a private copy of a BBC program and then shared it with the BBC the BBC could probably try to sue the person for misuse, because the act of sharing a private copy with a corporation probably violates the terms of use, but that would of course be very stupid of them.
I actually got an e-mail about buying lost episodes of Dr Who from a nice Nigerian prince but I deleted it.
Unless the legal owners (the BBC) gave permission for limited distribution i.e. back to themselves. Sharing is only illegal if you don't have the original owner's permission.
What you fail to realise, when taking this "our money" stance, is the money SAVED by throwing them away.
You seem confused on the real intent of "the purge". It had nothing to do with freeing up space or reusing media or anything of the sort.
Didn't you ever wonder why the BBC archives have such a bizarre patchwork of content missing? Not entire years, or seasons, or shows, but just completely random, with concentrations in a few years/seasons/series, but even then not consistent.
The BBC purge had more in common with Tom (as in "& Jerry") having a soft-spoken white owner in reruns, than with any actual economics of the situation. Simple as that.
I'm not 100% sure of how it works in Britain, but I think the way it works is that there is a tax/fee on recording media that then gets passed to an organization that dishes out the money to copyright holders based on a measure of popularity. If you bought a blank VHS tape you have already payed for the right to make copies of any video content that you have obtained legally. The terms of use for those copies are pretty strict, but they are legal.
We don't have a special tax on recording media in the UK, at all.
Until very recently (2012), it was technically illegal to make copies of anything you owned without the copyright owner's permission, though AFAIK no one was ever sued for it. Now you can. Unfortunately, you still are not allowed to break security measures, so ripping a DVD to video is still illegal. I think you can make straight copies, since you do not need to circumvent the security to do this. Most people in the UK thought making backups was not illegal, even prior to the new law.
The Wikipedia page on ripping is out of date and therefore wrong, though it is still illegal to rip DVDs because of CSS, it is not illegal to rip music from CDs. This page and this page have decent explanations.
Guess what? Before VHS was a huge number of other video tape standards, like reel to reel machines.
Fuck off, freetard.
No, taping for personal use is completely legal, even now. As long as he/she doesn't redistribute the content the copyright law doesn't apply.
The UK law that applies to this broadcast would be Copyright Act 1956 that establishes the copyright for the broadcast to 50 years from broadcasting date or 50 years from creation date if the content never is aired. This means the episodes in question will enter into public domain in 3-6 years.
Someone could be hanging on to the last missing episode to 'The Web of Fear' for a few more years until they can legally sell it, but since it will be in public domain by then the buyer could legally put in on pirate bay.
I'm not 100% sure of how it works in Britain, but I think the way it works is that there is a tax/fee on recording media that then gets passed to an organization that dishes out the money to copyright holders based on a measure of popularity.
No country in the world had those laws 50 years ago. Back then copyright laws were almost sensible.
Taping for own use was completely legal no matter how you look at it. Redistribution might not be, but the copyright for the work in question will expire in 3-6 years.
find the whole Dr. Who series of series stupid and unfunny?
... but the copyright for the work in question will expire in 3-6 years.
[ROLF] Bwahahaha! Tee hee hee! Oh! My spleen! Hahaha! Copyright will expire. Oh, that's priceless... Hahaha.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Suppose a person taped that missing episode at that time for themselves. Would they get a share of the profit they make for archiving their stuff for 50 years or would they be prosecuted for theft if they came forward? Copyright is very strange. I suppose it depends on the local laws. It seems there is a statute I recall from grade school called "Finders keepers, losers weepers".
The US Supreme Court weighed in on this in the case of "Keepers vs Weepers". Justice Scalia penned a fierce dissent against the Supreme Court's 8-1 decision in favor of "Weepers", on the basis of the "I gots mine" theory and insisting that the principle of "screw the rest of you's" overrode all other laws.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Why shouldn't they? If I could buy a television license from them here in the States and get nothing but what Britons get for television, I'd be much happier than with what American television broadcasts give me for several times the price.
Meanwhile, as a public service (which the BBC is, believe it or not), I see no particular reason the BBC shouldn't make the entirety of their programming available in a Netflix-style system for the use of all license-holders. I'd be willing to purchase a subscription myself, even as a foreigner.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Hello to you! I am Prince Doyouwannascifi of Nigeria. If you would be kind enough to send me $10,000 to me I would be more than happy to send you copies of your Dr. Who episodes my royal family has been safe keeping for you to enjoy much! Thank you and many happy returns!
and now they want to charge for them. Making them available via Bittorrent would be the moral choice.
They will be, give it a couple of days.
Be seeing you...
BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC is selling them. Their profits, believe or not, go right back in to the BBC! Why don't we just start giving away DVD's of the Top Gear while we are at too?
https://thepiratebay.sx/search/top%20gear/0/99/205
Individual episodes, easily converted to DVD for ya, for free.
This is the internet, if it can be digitized, you can find it for free generally.
Be seeing you...
Suppose a person taped that missing episode at that time for themselves. Would they get a share of the profit they make for archiving their stuff for 50 years or would they be prosecuted for theft if they came forward? Copyright is very strange. I suppose it depends on the local laws. It seems there is a statute I recall from grade school called "Finders keepers, losers weepers".
Perhaps they still own the copyright of the story, but the tapeholder can cut an excellent deal. And should.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It seems there is a statute I recall from grade school called "Finders keepers, losers weepers".
I find this perfectly typical of what passes for legal reasoning on Slashdot.
I suppose it's worth adding that the expiration of copyright does not give you ownership or access to primary sources. It does not fund conservation or your digital restoration project. It does not fund distribution.
At the time it was normal not to save TV shows. There was no home video market then, and for a long time not even really 'reruns'.
I'd bet that if you had some sort of time traveling box and went back to talk to people paying their TV tax then, they'd complain that the BBC would be wasting their money on all the storage of a TV show for no reason. Then you would have to fight some sort of robot men. At least I'm pretty sure how that would go.
This old line about "the public paid their license fee so they should be able to get everything for free" gets trotted out every time the BBC is mentioned. And it's totally wrong. If you pay to see a film at a cinema do you then expect to get the dvd of it free?
Right, because the cost of putting them up for torrenting is sooooo astronomical.
They should forget about England and offer it straight up to BBC America, or some other US cable company.
BBC America has been the financial tail wagging the dog back home for several years now, especially with respect to Whoverse sci-fi.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The BBC would love to do that, but for many of the programme they don't actually own the rights to them, and for many that they do these rights have already been sold under long term deals to overseas companies.
Be that as it may, there's no reason they couldn't begin with what they've got and add as they produce more material. I think we've all come to terms with the fact that some things have happened in the past that aren't going to get fixed easily if at all.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The new BSG was probably the single best sci-fi series I've watched in the last couple decades. But wow ... what an *awful* way to close it out!
When your organization has a fixed budget, there's obviously a cost to giving away an asset you could've sold. That cost is ultimately paid by the license payers.
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Doctor Who was NEVER lost as a result of tape reuse. Tape reuse occurred ONLY with transient broadcasts of no possible lasting value- usually current affairs and the like.
ALL valuable drama went into the BBC archives, initially with the intent to have as much of the old British Empire pay to show some version of the show in their own territories. Many empire/ex-empire nations had TV services that were years behind even the BBC (which was itself years behind the USA), and so may gain an interest in broadcasting BBC shows that were years old as their own TV networks reached coverage levels that made this worthwhile.
Doctor who, together with the VAST majority of 1960s BBC TV in the archives, was DELIBERATELY destroyed (destroyed, not wiped- with no-one allowed to simply take the material home to keep) at several times in the 70s and 80s. The main reason was political. Britain was subject to massive acts of social engineering in the 70s and 80s, and the powers-that-be did NOT want the sheeple having access to material from the 60s that showed a completely different societal outlook promoted from the top. There is a VERY good reason a Brit wrote 1984. It is BRITAIN that mastered the art of 're-writing' the past, and you cannot do this if the real facts of the past still exist.
Drama from the BBC is always laced with propaganda, so drama fell victim to this 1984-style operation. However, the unions were also to blame, for the unions were very powerful, and very against the idea of the BBC repeating shows rather than producing new ones. The unions were VERY anti-BBC-archive, which they saw as an engine of constant re-runs (Doctor Who actually got almost no re-runs in the UK).
So, when the BBC DESTROYED the vast majority of its archives, the right-wing and left-wing forces in power in the UK at the time gave a loud cheer. A short while later, the home video tape revolution began in earnest, and the destruction seemed like the worst form of short-sighted idiocy.
The legend of Doctor Who wiped/lost for tape-reuse is a VERY recent fabrication. The lie is propagated by the truth that while EVERY Doctor Who bar one Xmas episode ended up in the archive, and survived into the 1970s at least, often these versions were film made from tapes that had then been liberated for inferior use in news or the like. The tape reuse ONLY happened after a permanent copy of the drama had been created and placed in the archive.
PS in the 1970s, the taped copies of 1960s Doctor Who were on tapes long since obsolete, and could NOT have been re-used even if the BBC were mad enough to want to do this.
If I recall correctly from the previous Dr. Who story on here, the episodes fall to the public domain 50 years after their production (so 2016-2019 for these episodes). So BBC is capitalizing on the last few years when they can make money off these. Yes, I'm disappointed too but not the least bit shocked.
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/13/10/03/2232213/first-few-doctor-who-episodes-may-fall-to-public-domain-next-year?sdsrc=popbyskid
Are they releasing the lost episodes verbatim, or is some remastering involved? And if they are remastered, does that constitute a new original copyrightable work?
According to the BBC facebook page, they are remastered. The trailer looks pretty good.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I think people have less imagination in addition to a shorter attention span. There are signs of this out there including studies if you look.
I've been on the edge of dropping the new Who myself. I don't mind the fast pacing and I love FAST dialog (prefer it's not gibberish) but when they cut corners with it just like many lazy action films use a mess of cuts because their actors are not coordinated and their directors suck --- shows today use quick pacing, bad editing and disjointed situations to keep attention rather than focus on the story or ideas which if done right should be allowed to sit a moment and sink into the mind (but without much depth of mind, imagination, or worthy ideas to present...)
While the current writer (Steven Moffat) on Who has brilliant ideas and that got him the job; he isn't the kind of guy who should be in charge - and shouldn't have too much influence. The show reminds me more of children's programming; which fits since Steven Moffat used to do children's programming. We have a mix of a kiddie show cartoon combined with satisfying adult fans. It is surviving but it can't continue to get less sci-fi and less Doctor Who, migrating to Doctor Who the Saturday morning cartoon.
Doctor Who is not Harry Potter the TV series... using his screw driver like a magic wand whenever a problem needs solving; and uttering magical gibberish as the reasoning after the fact. I'm glad it hasn't adopted Star Trek's obsession with BS explanations...yet. It continues to move towards fantasy, magic, and mythology (prophecies) over time; which is bad for Sci-Fi, even if many of the ignorant public treat modern science similar to superstition we don't need to be promoting more of that.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
It's "Doctor Who".
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
If they recently discovered a work of it from the 1960s that they willingly destroyed because they were too cheap and short sighted to think of the future then yes they should. The point is A) these were paid for lost ago. B) they ONLY EXIST because someone outside the BBC possessed forethought to save it.
So yes they should be shown for free. The opportunity for profit passed long ago. Unfortunately we all didn't possess foresight to fix this then so they do.
If I had a time box I would grab their asses (amongst other people) and toss them into now for a year. That would solve a lot of problems.
If you pay to see a film at a cinema do you then expect to get the dvd of it free?
Yes. You should NEVER have to pay for a movie more than once. Do you want to pay for access to your couch every time you sit on it? Or when you open your refrigerator? That is what is so screwed up about the entire industry. If that actually happened, we would have much more content. Their job (as I am one of them) is to make content constantly. Not make something once and ride it for life.
Talking of standards, I find that dvd copies of tv series from the early seventies seem to have less noise (almost none) compared to the ones from the late seventies/early eighties. (Strictly talking PAL here) I guess, they must have moved to cheaper technology, wich isn't all bad cause stuff from that era is still available wheras a lot of the older stuff is lost because they reused the tapes.
The difference is that the ones from the early 70s are usually on film whilst the later ones are on tape, and tape deteriorates in a much more notiaceble way than film does.
And you know what else is exciting? Since this find in Nigeria, there have been reports of 106 episodes found in Ethiopia (clearly, the preservation of civilization requires getting as far away from the BBC as possible): 106 doctor who episodes uncovered
It is not clear that this Ethiopian 106 that they're talking about is entirely composed of "lost" episodes, so I would guess that it is not (despite the way this story is billed in some circles) but it's entirely likely that there are a few more the ones on the list of the 97 officially "still lost" list.
Attention slashdot: an update to this story, adding the Daily Mirror link, would not be out-of-line.
..the BBC decide to release them on iTunes - massive fail. Luckily my family still use Windows/Mac devices otherwise I'd have had no way of seeing them! Bring on the DVD releases, these truly are classic stories that live up to the hype that surrounded them! :-)
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
This is beautiful, the conspiracy theory of the week. It seems a bit like ill-informed ranting, but that's par for the course. I mean, I would believe that some short-sighted people thought it wasn't worth wasting shelf-space on old Who episodes, I could even believe a snobbish disdain by some faction led to deleting that trashy popular stuff before it could distract anyone from the 10,000th performance of Rachmaninoff... but you know:
This is a superb example of the form. (The cabal knew better than to let people see "The Ice Warriors", or else all hell would break loose!)
Using the word "sheeple" seems a little heavy-handed at this point, though. The upper-case for emphasis is enough of a tip-off, don't you think?
It is on torrent now ;)