Ed Bishop - condensed commentary online

Hi all,

I've edited out the gaps in Ed's Subsmash commentary, and
managed to get the whole thing into a 14 minute mp3. It will
be online for a day or two at:

http://freespace.virgin.net/james.gibbon/edb.mp3

The remark about Mike Billington's hairy chest is about 11
minutes in or so :)


James

>I've edited out the gaps in Ed's Subsmash commentary, and
>managed to get the whole thing into a 14 minute mp3.

That's it? A 48 minute episode and he only talked for
14 minutes??? And he didn't even cover many of the subjects
and stories he does in his interviews... :-(

Marc (who has a very different idea of what a commentary
*should* be like...)

CONTENTS DELETED

>He could recite the names in the British phone directory and I'd be happy.
><vbg>

Well, if *I* was producing that commentary, I would have gone through
all of the Ed Bishop interviews he's done in magazines through the
years, and picked out all of my favorites stories he's told about
UFO. Then I would have treated this essentially like a 48 minute
interview, except that the interviewer would never be heard. So we
would have just heard Ed telling all of his UFO stories for the whole
episode. I realize that this is different than what some people to
consider to be a "proper commentary" (where people comment on what
they see onscreen), but in this case I think it would have been far
more interesting...

Marc

Marc wrote:

> That's it? A 48 minute episode and he only talked for
> 14 minutes??? And he didn't even cover many of the subjects
> and stories he does in his interviews... :-(
>

Yes - that's the whole thing, with the gaps surgically removed.
Every comment and chuckle is on the mp3. To be fair if you listen
to it unedited it doesn't sound that sparse, I was surprised to be
able to get it down to 14 mins, though I did edit it quite
mercilessly, even chopping out 5 second gaps on occasion.

I thought it was quite interesting! Admittedly it came across as if
it hadn't been prepared or rehearsed - maybe if Ed had watched it
once or twice beforehand and prepared some anecdotes there might
have been a bit more, but as it is the fact that it's very much 'off
the cuff' gives it a certain charm. And of course it is obviously
supposed to be experienced while watching Subsmash in 'real time',
and it works better that way.

James

--- In SHADO@y..., James Gibbon <james.gibbon@v...> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I've edited out the gaps in Ed's Subsmash commentary, and
> managed to get the whole thing into a 14 minute mp3. It will
> be online for a day or two at:
>
> http://freespace.virgin.net/ <snip>

OK, I've just dipped into the group after being away for a few weeks
and I have to say that I think this is very, very dodgy.

I'm not talking out of my arse here - I'm the content producer for
the BBC Doctor Who DVD range and I can assure you that if anyone
posted mp3's of any of our commentaries, I'd get BBC Legal down on
them like a ton of bricks AND I'd get them to instruct Yahoo! to
close the group - which they have done before for us.

Why can't people understand that ownership of a piece of merchandise
does not give them any rights *whatsoever* to republish it over the
internet? For God's sake, the second boxset had hardly hit the shops
before you were pirating bits of it and publishing it on your
website!

This sort of stuff makes me so cross... It's exactly why Paramount
closed down all the Star Trek website because a few people were
breaking their copyright in serious ways. Fandom needs to make sure
it polices itself to stop this kind of copyright infringement
happening - and to make sure that our fan sites don't go the same
way as the Star Trek ones did...

Steve Roberts

>Fandom needs to make sure
>it polices itself to stop this kind of copyright infringement
>happening - and to make sure that our fan sites don't go the same
>way as the Star Trek ones did...

Yes, but where do you draw the line? Seems that everyone has
a different idea of where the "line" is, and even if a fansite
that self-polices itself, the copyright owner may still think
that the website has gone too far.

I'm sure that many would consider my "UFO Series Home Page"
as having gone too far, with it's high-resolution photos,
transcriptions of original scripts, and MP3's of music. But
so far, the only contact I've had from Carlton was to make
sure that they were identified as the copyright owner. So
either they're not paying attention to what's there, or
they don't care.

Marc (who was wondering when this topic would reappear...)

--- In SHADO@y..., Marc Martin <marc@u...> wrote:

> Yes, but where do you draw the line? Seems that everyone has
> a different idea of where the "line" is, and even if a fansite
> that self-polices itself, the copyright owner may still think
> that the website has gone too far.

Absolutely - but I think that there are already fairly well
understood definitions of where 'the line' is. Basically, stills are
generally considered acceptable, as are audio clips of less than 30
seconds duration. Video clips are a bit dodgy and it would be wise
to check with the copyright holder.

However, in this case, I don't think that there's any doubt that the
line has been crossed, do you? Republishing the entire guts of a
brand-new commentary on a commercial DVD the week it is released is
hardly going to be considered justifiable by any sensible person, is
it? Carlton would be able to make a *very* strong case that the Ed
Bishop commentary was a selling point for the UFO discs and
therefore anyone publishing pirate copies of it would be responsible
for a potential loss of sales and could be sued for damages.

Steve

Marc Martin wrote:

>Yes, but where do you draw the line? Seems that everyone has a different
>idea of where the "line" is,

Ultimately, the one that matters is that of the rights-holder to the
material. Usually, there is a certain amount of common sense involved. In
most cases (though not all), the owners are willing to turn a blind eye to
unauthorized but non-commercial use of material from old shows on fan
sites, because it amounts to free publicity in a case where it might not be
cost-effective for them to do similar publicizing themselves -- and it
probably helps to sell the videos and DVDs, from which the owners *do* make
a profit.

The rights-holders tend to be a whole lot fussier about current or very
recent shows, although even there they'll often allow a certain amount of
use if it doesn't appear to be competing with something they're marketing.
That's really the key; they want to make sure no one else is profiting from
their material, *or* cutting into their profits by giving away something
the rights-holder wants to sell (or thinks it might want to sell in
future.) If Carlton were selling a nice edition of the UFO scripts, you
probably would hear from them about the ones on your site. If they wanted
to sell a collection of frame captures, they'd slap me down. As it is,
people come across our sites and say, "Hey, I remember that show!" And some
of them probably go on to investigate whether they can get it on video or
DVD, and a few of them buy the things. I doubt whether we have a big impact
on the profits, but it's likely to be positive, not negative. Hence, we are
quietly tolerated.

That's my own ethical standard about fannish material, too. (Like many
fans, I skirt the letter of the copyright laws but respect the spirit.) I
won't profit from someone else's property, and I won't give away something
the rightful owner is trying to sell. On those terms, I do think Steve is
right and pirating material from the DVDs is going a bit far.

- Lisa

--
Lisa Williams: [hidden email] or [hidden email]
Lisa's Video Frame Capture Library: http://framecaplib.com/

"doorstop100" wrote:

>
> However, in this case, I don't think that there's any doubt that the
> line has been crossed, do you? Republishing the entire guts of a
> brand-new commentary on a commercial DVD the week it is released is
> hardly going to be considered justifiable by any sensible person, is
> it?

Steve,

I take your point. But I think the use of the term 'republishing' is
a stretch here.

Firstly, I didn't post it onto a 'website' exactly. It's not
possible that anyone could have found it by surfing around, only
members of this list could have been aware of its existence, and it
was deleted after a couple of days. Secondly, obviously the
commentary is intended to accompany an episode in real time, and
after being detached from the video content and edited out of real
time, it has lost its raison d'etre and has only limited interest.
Not exactly a 'pirate' then, I humbly submit, particularly given the
transient nature of its availability. Just a small novelty to give
the flavour of the DVD for the benefit of a limited number of fans,
exactly like the frame captures in fact.

I have seen some fairly gross liberties taken with copyright over
the last couple of years (people selling permanent copies of
soundtrack music for example), and as a few members of this list
might remember, I'm normally (literally) the first to complain. If
I'd thought that it would have deterred a single person from buying
a single DVD, I wouldn't have done it, I promise you. I don't
believe that it did, quite honestly. Whether it actually helped to
promote a few sales, I don't know.

Still, as I said I take your point. If anyone had objected at
the time I wouldn't have done it, and I don't have any plans to
knock up any more mp3s.

Regards,
James

Steve writes:
>However, in this case, I don't think that there's any doubt that the
>line has been crossed, do you?

Yes, I would agree that publishing anything over a few minutes
of the commentary track would be crossing the line. On my own
website, I've got brief excerpts of each commentary (38 seconds
for Gerry's, and 16 seconds for Ed's), which gives people a flavor
of what the commentary is like, and (hopefully) encourages them
to want to hear more and purchase the DVDs!

James writes:
>I'd thought that it would have deterred a single person from buying
>a single DVD, I wouldn't have done it, I promise you.

Yes, somehow I doubt anyone on this list was deterred from purchasing
the discs because of this. The biggest selling point after all is
the fact that they are on DVD instead of VHS, and that they look
and sound terrific! (I however may have deterred someone from
purchasing the Carlton box 2 after mentioning that the A&E box 2
will have an additional commentary track...)

Marc

>(I however may have deterred someone from
>purchasing the Carlton box 2 after mentioning that the A&E box 2
>will have an additional commentary track...)

Oh, and I see on the Space:1999 list that some folks have already
figured out ways to turn off the French subtitles on the French
TF1 Space:1999 DVD's, so I guess news like this also might cause people
to purchase the French TF1 UFO DVD's instead of the UK Carlton UFO DVD's...

Marc

and then with the arugement about copy right, some might say that they are
just happy to record it off the t.v. But then again even that's illegal and
stopping people buying the series. But I agree we have to be careful. But
what did happen to all the Star Trek sites? I thought it was a USA thing
that got them shut down. Is UFO the same?

-----Original Message-----
From: Marc Martin [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: 23 June 2002 19:02
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [SHADO] Re: Copyright infringement


>(I however may have deterred someone from
>purchasing the Carlton box 2 after mentioning that the A&E box 2
>will have an additional commentary track...)

Oh, and I see on the Space:1999 list that some folks have already
figured out ways to turn off the French subtitles on the French
TF1 Space:1999 DVD's, so I guess news like this also might cause people
to purchase the French TF1 UFO DVD's instead of the UK Carlton UFO DVD's...

Marc



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

--- In SHADO@y..., Marc Martin <marc@u...> wrote:

>I guess news like this also might cause people
> to purchase the French TF1 UFO DVD's instead of the UK Carlton UFO
> DVD's...

What is the story here though, 'cos word on the inside is that the
TF1 release may not have used the totally remastered seasons, only
the four remasterd episodes that they rejected initially...

Steve

>and then with the arugement about copy right, some might say that they are
>just happy to record it off the t.v. But then again even that's illegal and
>stopping people buying the series. But I agree we have to be careful. But
>what did happen to all the Star Trek sites? I thought it was a USA thing
>that got them shut down. Is UFO the same?

It appears that the reason that the Star Trek fan sites were shut down
was because Paramount was starting up their own official website, and
didn't want fan competition. However, there are still hundreds of
Star Trek fan websites out there, so it appears that only a small
fraction of them got shut down. Why some got picked on and others
didn't, I don't know...

Marc

>What is the story here though, 'cos word on the inside is that the
>TF1 release may not have used the totally remastered seasons, only
>the four remasterd episodes that they rejected initially...

Interesting! I've pre-ordered the TF1 UFO set (a bit difficult since
the web pages were all in French, and I don't understand French!), and
it's due to be released July 18th. It'll be interesting to compare
the video/audio quality of the episodes. Presumably they were using
the 1997 transfers done for the BBC2 broadcast, which people thought
were pretty good at the time...

Marc

You're right. This legal silliness is akin to proposed bans on "deep
linking". If I find what I want at ufoseries.com (from a search engine), I'm
likely to go back to the homepage to see more.

Intro stuff only encourages further inquiry. I've been offered bootleg
copies of stuff (movies, software, music) but I decline since the QC is not
there, and stuff I like gets bought retail.


Paul



Message: 1
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 10:57:43 -0700
From: Marc Martin <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: Copyright infringement

Steve writes:
>However, in this case, I don't think that there's any doubt that the
>line has been crossed, do you?

Yes, I would agree that publishing anything over a few minutes
of the commentary track would be crossing the line. On my own
website, I've got brief excerpts of each commentary (38 seconds
for Gerry's, and 16 seconds for Ed's), which gives people a flavor
of what the commentary is like, and (hopefully) encourages them
to want to hear more and purchase the DVDs!

James writes:
>I'd thought that it would have deterred a single person from buying
>a single DVD, I wouldn't have done it, I promise you.

Yes, somehow I doubt anyone on this list was deterred from purchasing
the discs because of this. The biggest selling point after all is
the fact that they are on DVD instead of VHS, and that they look
and sound terrific! (I however may have deterred someone from
purchasing the Carlton box 2 after mentioning that the A&E box 2
will have an additional commentary track...)

I am SICK of the belly aching about Copyright infringement on the NET. I have ordered the full UFO DVD Series BECAUSE of the Fan sites on the Net that let me know about the DVD Series in the first place! Far MORE people will see it and be interested in Purchasing the UFO Series after seeing the reviews, Screen captures, and a few reprints. Anyone who would be deterred from buying the DVD because it was partially distributed on the NET wouldn't buy the darn series anyway. Give the fans a break. Fans keep a title alive - and bring in a whole new generation that has never seen the UFO series because it did not air during their generation. I have seen MANY products COPYRIGHTED into the dirt. They make it so hard to be a Fan - Fans move on to more friendly titles. Think about that.

My kids never heard of SHADO until they saw my old videos and saw the UFO series Web site. They certainly would not have been attracted to the title "UFO" - it sounds like a cheap drive in movie. It would have dead an untimely death on a shelf somewhere if Fans were not keeping it alive. It really is an inovative dynamic series. PLEASE THINK ABOUT IT!!!!!

Marc,
My guess is that Carlton knows exactly what is there - and they do CARE - because each and everyone who visits the UFO Series Website of yours is a potential buying customer to them. I BOUGHT the DVD Series after seeing the news on Your Website. That makes Carlton VERY Smart i'd say. Keep up the good work. How many other Fans bought the DVD Series because of your website? I wonder.

<<I am SICK of the belly aching about Copyright
infringement on the NET. I have ordered the full UFO
DVD Series BECAUSE of the Fan sites on the Net that
let me know about the DVD Series in the first place!>>

Hear hear ! (I would have copied the whole post, but
the list has rules about that :^ ).

More people will have been motivated to buy 'U.F.O.'
DVDs from the fan websites and discussion groups than
Carlton's 'official' web site; I hate its
time-consuming and off-putting flash intro, and that
it has yet to put up any info on the second DVD box
set, despite the magazine ads promising the site
provides 'the latest facts.'

The commercial companies aren't slow to use the
resources of fans when it suits their purpose - as
when it approaches them for photos etc for their video
covers - and they should realise that suppressing fan
activities can only hurt their profits. Enlightened
self-interest alone should incline them to a
'softly-softly' approach.

Andy

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