Enemy of the World was released on DVD in Britain November 2013 and in North America May 2014. Although, Canadian Best Buy somehow arranged to have a special advance release in December 2013 and was available exclusively there until the general release in May. Web of Fear meanwhile was released on DVD in Britain February 2014 and in North America April 2014. This might be of interest. Basically, it's a list of Doctor Who DVD releases with their release dates in the individual regions listed. We can see that with some they were released same month, while others have many months between. So, really there is no reliable precedent on the matter.
Because early on after he returned the 9 missing episodes, he hinted that there was more to come, the "wind was blowing in the right direction" etc, but that was almost two years ago, and he's since backed away from any public comments. Add to this fan rumour regarding conspiracies, reasons for the delay of The Underwater Menace, unshakeable faith there is more out that and misinformation by media outlets have led to a negative light being shined on Mr Morris, something that has been enhanced by Ian Levine's dislike for the man and a percentage of people that believe Ian over Phil. The fact he doesn't want to come out and say one way or another that there is more to come leads fans to believe he's holding stuff back, but if he says that there is nothing else to come and then he suddenly finds The Myth Makers in a vault somewhere six weeks down the track he'll be branded a liar, so he's damned either way.
Either he's found more episodes by now or he hasn't. He doesn't have to list them, just say he's got 'em (or he doesn't). Then add the following: "I'm still searching, leaving no stone unturned, and I don't intend to give up (and release whatever I've got) until it's clear beyond any shadow of doubt that there's nothing else out there. Bear in mind it's not just Doctor Who, I'm trying to find other lost TV shows of the past as well. Worst case, if I find nothing else, at least eventually you'll get a great story on the attempt out of it. You've waited this long. Be patient just a while longer - and trust me."
So here's what Phil had to say for himself today at Pandorica (paraphrased): "I DID find all six parts of The Web of Fear. Find, not get. Negotiations to get them back to England took six months. But rumor of it leaked out before I actually could go back to retrieve them (in Nigeria) and the station manager turned around and sold JUST Part 3 to a private collector. (In fact, might have been the same guy who tried to buy both the Web and Enemy episodes off of me to STOP me handing them to BBC!) The find came just in time, as the station was burned to the ground shortly after retrieval. I held off as long as I could on announcing the find - a whole year - in hopes of getting Part 3 back, but the private collector just wouldn't deal. (I hope now that I've called him out, he'll do the right thing and sell it to the BBC.) Even IF I've found more episodes - and I'm not saying I have - I will not tell what they are or where I found them until I'm good and ready, for fear of something like the above happening again. I will say this much: I have NOT (so far) found any missing DW episodes that were in unsalvageable condition. (I sadly did find one Morecambe and Wise episode that was too far gone.) The search goes on, until I've checked everywhere there is to check. I don't know how long that will take. I am hopeful. And I love surprising people."
Grrr... Maybe I've said this earlier in the thread, but I detest "private collectors" greedy enough to want to hoard unique items and gloat about depriving everyone else of them. Anyone who'd come into possession of a lost Doctor Who episode and choose to keep it from the fans rather than sharing it with them doesn't deserve to have it.
heck, if I had lost episodes I would do anything and everything to squeeze every drop of "self-congratulations" I could. Not only would I sell it back to the BBC, I would go on the convention circuit, I would go on the news, I would even try to get my face on the Bonus dvd material just so I could say "yup. I'm a hero. Yay me!"
The big beef with him is that he never (as far as I know) outright denied the rumors and let things grow out of hand. Sure, there would be some who wouldn't believe his denial, but they'd soon be disappointed. The rest of us rational people would know that he didn't have any more DW. Instead, he just let it grow and grow. Mr Awe
What an asshole. The private collector, not Philip Morris. Morris still has some issues, but this does help clarify some of his actions and motivations. No wonder he's so pissed. I'm pissed now.
Does the BBC have no legal avenue to retrieve the episode ? I realise that copyright won't help as the collector isn't broadcasting or copying the episode, but he can't actually own the film in the way that you can own a DVD or VHS sold for home use. The film was not sold to the foreign station, they just purchased the rights to show it. If they were offered money by Morris or the BBC for their return it was as a 'finders fee' - the films remained the property of the BBC. As the Nigerian station didn't own them, legal ownership could not be transferred to the collector. The film is now stolen property.
An interesting question. I'm no lawyer, but one aspect of intellectual property (IP) law is that you have to defend your claims to the IP. Given that the BBC is in this boat because it destroyed all its copies of the material and given that they clearly knew what stations they licensed the material to, their failure to recover it (or ensure its destruction after the license terms were fulfiled) constitutes abandoning the IP claim. Ironically the BBC was the beneficiary of this aspect of IP law in applying for the rights to the Metropolitan Police Box as the TARDIS, back around 2005. The Metropolitan Police said the police box was their IP, but the court ruled against them. Not only did they fail to prevent the use of a Met box as the image of the TARDIS for the decade or so that they were actually still in use while the show was on the air, they tore down and removed all their police boxes (with the last one in service, the Barnet Bypass box, hanging on until 1980). So the courts said the BBC could copyright the image of a police box to use in conjunction with Doctor Who. (More or less.) Also ironically, if the BBC had protected its IP to the point where a claim would hold up, there would be no old tapes/films left to find.
Some updates from this morning's convention events (reprinted from the Planet Mondas forum): - Morris has just returned from the Middle East, where he was subject to some of the tightest controls he has experienced. These included no camera, no sat-nav, no mobile phone and total confidentiality covering any material he may discover / access during his time there. - Most of the places that Doctor Who episodes were sold to (such as Kenya) have been searched already. However, the 'official paperwork' only goes so far and is not always accurate in terms of where the film cans were sent to. - Currently Morris is following up a number of leads and is also interested in contacting any territories that were sent audition prints (one-off copies of sample episodes for station execs to decide whether to pick up and air the series). - There are a number of non-DW finds ("Nobody ever asks me about those") in the pipeline that he can't talk about yet. - Morris will post his photo of the originally-discovered 12 cans of film (6 x cans of The Web Of Fear and 6 x cans of The Enemy of The World). - Morris likes working with film collectors and believes that we would have lost so much stuff if it wasn't for them keeping it in their collections. He has been talking to people that were responsible for clearing out Ealing Studios, Villiers House etc.
Well maybe not quite THAT far. I appreciate what Levine has done, but the guy sometimes doesn't know his limits.