Lost Stories / Copyrights

[OmahaStar]

Something has been niggling at the back of my mind since Dragon*Con. While waiting for Sylvester's first panel, I found myself with a group of fans who were from the UK. One of them, an older gentleman on a scooter, talked about how the copyright on Doctor Who was quickly expiring.

According to this guy, there are no lost episodes. Former employees of the BBC managed to get their hands on reels and/or tapes long before the purge. One of them in particular has offered the complete Daleks Master Plan (with the cutaway one-off) for an obscene amount of money that the BBC was unwilling to pay.

If this guy holds onto the tapes/reels for four more years, the stories will be out of copyright, and can be released by anyone as Public Domain. He, and the others who have these lost episodes, are holding on to them for now, and will release them on their own on DVD starting in 2013, when Marco Polo's rights have expired.

My first instinct was to dismiss the entire thing ... What Doctor Who fan would hold onto things like that, right? But it's been niggling in the back of my mind ... Is this something that's even possible? Do copyrights work that way in the UK? Once it hits the 50 year mark, it's automatically public domain? That seems awfully short sighted, but this is the BBC, so I don't know.

Has anyone else heard of this sort of thing happening? Or were the UKers just spreading bullshit? (I'm leaning towards that)

 

[Sindatur]

Their Copyrights don't last as long as ours do, but, it seems strange individual episodes of a TV series would be subject to individual copyrights?

Would be great if true, that there actually are those lost episodes out there waiting just around the corner to be released. The Dalek's Master Plan is definitely one I'd be interested in seeing come to light.

The Animating of the episodes they have done has been quite expensive, right? If this was just around the corner, would they invest that money? Are they profiting enough from the Stories they are animating episodes for?

 

[OmahaStar]

Good question. But that's the thing ... They talked about how expensive it was to do the animation for The Invasion, and only did it because money became available from something that had been canceled (a web series, perhaps?).

But how many amateur artists are there out there who are doing these reconstructions on their own, for free? There are tons of them on youtube. If the dvd folks were smart, they would get in touch with these animators, get as high quality animation as they could out of them and release that on DVD (with commentary and the rest) ... Give the animators a few bucks, or on-screen credit even, and be done with it.

How many times have we heard of someone saying they had offered their services for little or no money, only to be turned down? Are 2Entertain contractually obligated to pay the highest price they can for this? If not, why don't they get these deals in place and start releasing some?

 

[Sindatur]

Good question. But that's the thing ... They talked about how expensive it was to do the animation for The Invasion, and only did it because money became available from something that had been canceled (a web series, perhaps?).

But how many amateur artists are there out there who are doing these reconstructions on their own, for free? There are tons of them on youtube. If the dvd folks were smart, they would get in touch with these animators, get as high quality animation as they could out of them and release that on DVD (with commentary and the rest) ... Give the animators a few bucks, or on-screen credit even, and be done with it.

How many times have we heard of someone saying they had offered their services for little or no money, only to be turned down? Are 2Entertain contractually obligated to pay the highest price they can for this? If not, why don't they get these deals in place and start releasing some?

No arguments there

 

[Mr Awe]

Even if the copyright expired, wouldn't they have broken other laws by stealing the tapes? I have no idea if there would be a statue of limitations on that. At the very least, there name would be mud because everyone will no what they did.

Mr Awe

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Or were the UKers just spreading bullshit? (I'm leaning towards that)

There have been rumors for a long time that Ian Levine is sitting on some (though not all!) of the lost episodes. I think that's unlikely; Levine is such a narcissist that he'd want the adulation for returning, say, "Daleks' Master-Plan" to the archives. So that's a rumor I feel safe in dismissing.

I think this rumor is also nonsense. And I think the copyright situation is not as clear-cut in favor of the public domain as this person thinks it is.

The person probably thinks that because the episode is lost, that there's nothing for the BBC to renew on the copyright. But that's not true. The BBC has the audio soundtracks for all of the lost episodes, thanks to industrious fans, and the soundtracks have all been officially released by the BBC, so the copyrights have been renewed on at least that aspect. And I'd suspect that, even if the BBC doesn't have physical copies of the lost episodes, they still filed the proper paperwork for copyright renewal, on the off-chance that at some later date, within the century or so that the current maximum copyright term is, the lost episodes are found.

Speaking of The Invasion, that was funded out of the money that had been allocated for the follow-up to The Scream of the Shalka. Because of the Eccleston series, the plans for the Shalka follow-up went in the circular file, but the BBC had already allocated the money and it had to be spent. (As an aside, Jim Swallow was to have written the follow-up to Shalka.) And so it got spent on The Invasion.

 

[Rarewolf]

How many times have we heard of someone saying they had offered their services for little or no money, only to be turned down? Are 2Entertain contractually obligated to pay the highest price they can for this? If not, why don't they get these deals in place and start releasing some?

Not the highest rate, but they do have to pay a professional rate. Otherwise the professional animation studios could say they'd been denied work.

 

[JB2005]

I'm calling bullshit on the "hoarding old tapes" thing...it's just been too long now, there;s a story that Robert Mugabe (yes really) is the one with all the missing tapes...these rumours persist because people desperately want it to be true, or hear it so often that they believe it to be...but honestly I think we've seen all the lost tapes we're going to now...

 

[Cutter John]

I dunno. The whole thing about "Someone is sitting on the films" sounds like a fannish urban legend to me.

As for the animation, I always just assumed that there was some Union rule preventing them from just grabbing a freelance animator off Youtube to do the stories.

 

[JB2005]

The urban legend came about because there were stories of fans hoarding one or two of the lost episodes in case any others came up that they could trade for...

But honestly I don't think there can be many, if any left out there...especially not with Blue Peter promising a shiny new Dalek to whoever finds a lost episode, the collectors are fanboys at heart after all!

 

[Samson88B]

Well I personally think that just about anything is possible.. As to how many episodes have been saved? Who knows. Here is what I think....In my youth I did alot of warehouse work, and working in the warehouse there were many times that I would here how certain products were reaching end of life or just becoming obsolete. Well of course myself and alot of other warehouse workers could find use for these items that the company no longer wanted. To be honest .... me and the other warehouse workers did such a good job at making sure nothing went to waste that policies were created by the companies to stop us from taking merchandise that would have been discarded in the dumpster. So from that point on the companies would rather see merchandise be thrown away (it was too much for them to try and police what was good merchandise and what was end of life) and be of no use to anyone...except those maybe working at the landfill were the merchandise was ultimately sent to.

So I do often wonder about the "Purge at BBC" and the lost episodes....Im sure that word could have been circulated for some time what management had planned to do with the Doctor Who episodes. So I could see the possibility of a fan taking a episode or 2 here and there. Justifying it by saying "Well they were going to throw them away anyway..." The difference here is that IF anyone did come across some episodes in this manner and came public...What would the legal consequences be? Would there be criminal penalties or copyright violations... Where could someone even go in this day and age to release an authentic episode without getting into trouble.

Very interesting topic........

 

[JB2005]

It would be theft, there's no statute of limitations and when an episode turned up in Australia a few years ago, auntie sent the guy who had it a threatening letter (which no doubt made people who *do* have episodes - if they exist - feel *really* great about owning up!

If you're helping yourself to something that's been thrown away, then until it's actually been discarded (ie at the landfill) then you're stealing...it's all very well to say that "oh well they were going to throw it out anyway" but that's not a legal defence...scavenging from a tip when it's been discarded is fine, but while it still remains the warehouse's property...

And the BBC kept records of the purge, orders were signed etc the tapes were confirmed to be destroyed!

http://blip.tv/sf-debris-opinionate...wiped-junked-but-not-forgotten-part-1-4875627

 

[Cutter John]

But didn't the BBC say years back that they wouldn't prosecute anybody who returned episodes?

*sigh* Oh to have a time machine, a big truck, and a few hundred pounds to bribe the night watchman...

 

[Sindatur]

But didn't the BBC say years back that they wouldn't prosecute anybody who returned episodes?

*sigh* Oh to have a time machine, a big truck, and a few hundred pounds to bribe the night watchman...

Yea, ya know, you'd think the Doctor could do this one thing for his fans. I mean, he's had 11 lifetimes to get it done

 

[Allyn Gibson]

But didn't the BBC say years back that they wouldn't prosecute anybody who returned episodes?

*sigh* Oh to have a time machine, a big truck, and a few hundred pounds to bribe the night watchman...

Or an FTL drive, so you can get out in front of the television signal wavefront. However, the signal would be seriously weak, fifty light-years out.

 

[Cutter John]

I dunno, couldn't be much worse than some of the multi-generation vhs tapes of episodes I've watched over the years...

 

[Phillip Culley]

But didn't the BBC say years back that they wouldn't prosecute anybody who returned episodes?

I think there's misinformation going around about the BBC's threat! They weren't threatening him for owning the episode - the threat only appeared as he was trying to sell the film. In the end nothing came of it since it was determined that he owned the can and physical film itself while the actual recorded episodes were still the copyright of the BBC.

As to this notion of the copyright expiring on the missing episodes and their suddenly becoming public domain - utter tosh. The BBC still hold the rights to material referenced in the episode such as the series itself, the TARDIS, the Doctor, and these are perpetually renewed every time they're referenced. Were anyone to be hoarding these episodes until this mythical expiration date (which is extraordinarily unlikely) they're in for a very very long wait.

Personally I find it hard to believe that there are hoarded episodes - if there were then people would be aware of them. For example there was an episode of A for Andromeda which was known to be in the hands of a hoarder until Ian Levine finally got him to give it up. The important point is that people knew about it - it was an open secret. It seems very unlikely that someone was hoarding an episode and all we hear are people who tell third party stories which always come to nothing.

The best we're likely to get is people who have the episodes however are unaware of their value, such as the episode of The Romans which turned up in someone's shed a few months ago.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Has anyone else heard of this sort of thing happening? Or were the UKers just spreading bullshit? (I'm leaning towards that)

Biggest load of bullshit in the history of time!

I mean...

this is the most laughable bollocks I've ever heard in relation to the show.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Personally I think all the missing episode tapes are being hoarded....

in Warehouse 13.

 

[Starkers]

Don't be ridiculous!

They're clearly all in Henry Van Statten's bunker!