Obnoxious how people just want to keep riding on the coattails of the predecessors' successes by greatly rising such costs.
Oh, wait. I just described the royals.
Oh, wait. I just described the royals.
Fear Her removed from iPlayer
- Thread starter TommyR01D
- Start date
I've said it before, but I really don't get the UK law of letting writers own whole episodes of a TV show. No one could get a single Star Trek episode removed because they or their father/Grandfather/etc wrote it. They still get royalties for created characters if Trek reuses them and the writers weren't staff writers (although thats famously why Tom Parris and T'Pol aren't Nick Locarno and T'Pau, so it doesn't pay off that often to create a Trek character), but the idea that some random asshole could get whole episodes removed is ridiculous.
Besides the fact that its stupid, it acts like the writer is the only person who has "ownership" of an episode. What about the actors or the director? By the UK's logic, why can't Tom Baker pull an episode because he thinks he had a bad hair day, how is he less important to the shows as filmed then the guy who wrote Seeds of Doom?
I swear, its shocking that the UK has any kind of entertainment industry when the inmates have such total control over the asylum. Its a good thing that the crazy people are few and far between, imagine if Moffat or his family got pissed off and pulled all of his written episodes? Even if UK works like the US and episodes written while he was showrunner would count as "staff work" owned by the BBC, thats still about half a dozen episodes ranging from really solid to outright iconic capable of being removed.
Besides the fact that its stupid, it acts like the writer is the only person who has "ownership" of an episode. What about the actors or the director? By the UK's logic, why can't Tom Baker pull an episode because he thinks he had a bad hair day, how is he less important to the shows as filmed then the guy who wrote Seeds of Doom?
I swear, its shocking that the UK has any kind of entertainment industry when the inmates have such total control over the asylum. Its a good thing that the crazy people are few and far between, imagine if Moffat or his family got pissed off and pulled all of his written episodes? Even if UK works like the US and episodes written while he was showrunner would count as "staff work" owned by the BBC, thats still about half a dozen episodes ranging from really solid to outright iconic capable of being removed.
I don't really know the full details, but I think the whole thing of a writer owning their episode and anything introduced in it is related to how British copyright law works. The short version, British copyright law is very different from American copyright law. Just looking at the copyright pages of British books you'll see some very notable differences from the copyright page of an American book.
Yup, that's how I've always understood their copyright law works, directly because of Doctor Who (and more specifically because of K-9).
It is starkly different from what us Americans are use to and I certainly understand the appeal of doing it.
I just take issue with the successors of the artists being greedy after the artists have died.
It is starkly different from what us Americans are use to and I certainly understand the appeal of doing it.
I just take issue with the successors of the artists being greedy after the artists have died.
It makes sense to me, they're the ones who came up with the ideas, so seems fair that they'd have control over them. It at least has the potential to work out better for the writer than the system in the US, where you can create a character that makes a company billions of dollars, and end up broke and needing a GoFunMe fundraiser just to afford life saving medical care.
Well, I'm glad you're not in charge of the Entertainment industry then
Those writers got fairly paid to work on a show. They didn't invent The Doctor or any of the regular elements they used, and they didn't do 90% of the work involved in bringing the episodes to life. Its ridiculous to think they deserve any level of control. Royalties? Yes. Control over the accessibility of the episodes? No way, its completely unreasonable.
Fuck every one of the writers who get the episodes removed from pure greed, especially when its the estate made up of people who didn't write shit. We live in a world where the son of the guy who wrote the first Doctor Who serial has promised to leave the rights to Vladimir Putin when he dies. The fact that you can even remotely defend that, even by default, should make you rethink your position.
There are dozens of Doctor Who episodes lost because they were destroyed, potentially losing more because of idiot writers and/or their estates is absolutely maddening.
It depends on the contract. If it's an 'all rights deal', you sign over the lot. If it's a time limited deal it come back to you, or your heirs. As Who had to be rerun within a few years, it was cheaper for the BBC to buy time limited rights (not as if it would matter 50 years later).Well, I'm glad you're not in charge of the Entertainment industry then
Those writers got fairly paid to work on a show. They didn't invent The Doctor or any of the regular elements they used, and they didn't do 90% of the work involved in bringing the episodes to life. Its ridiculous to think they deserve any level of control. Royalties? Yes. Control over the accessibility of the episodes? No way, its completely unreasonable.
Fuck every one of the writers who get the episodes removed from pure greed, especially when its the estate made up of people who didn't write shit. We live in a world where the son of the guy who wrote the first Doctor Who serial has promised to leave the rights to Vladimir Putin when he dies. The fact that you can even remotely defend that, even by default, should make you rethink your position.
There are dozens of Doctor Who episodes lost because they were destroyed, potentially losing more because of idiot writers and/or their estates is absolutely maddening.
You know, having just one Time Traveler go to the head of early 60s BBC and telling them about the future of Home Video would solve a lot of problems
It's not just about writers. Equity had agreements to ensure remakes rather than repeats. so until about 1990 an actor could veto a rescreening of an out-of-time episode (so one B7 episode was missing from sattelitle runs). Since then Equity has changed its rules, but writer contacts predating that stand.
Which episode was that?
IIRC, Martin Shaw vetoed repeats of The Professionals for a long time, as he was embarrassed by the show. Someone pointed out to him that repeats would make a nice source of income for his by-now elderly co-star Gordon Jackson, so he reneged on the veto.
