[Lemmy Lugosi]

Originally Posted by HDMe

You missed the point I brought up earlier... There is NO excuse for a company contracting for the rights to use a song in their show and not securing rights for all potential delivery.

Old shows are another discussion... since syndication was a new thing, then home video was a new thing... prior to those new things, there was no reason to secure rights beyond TV airing.

But now... and I'd argue for the last 30 years... there is no excuse for not locking up the home video rights to that music before putting it in the show. They know they might want to release home video one day, and they could negotiate for the music rights up front... but they still don't.

They wait... for no apparent reason... and then sometimes it becomes a problem. I can't blame a musician for wanting to get paid for the song he created. I can blame the producer of the TV show for not signing up for home video rights before using the song in the show.

Before the song ever gets used in the show... that decision should be made. Don't use a song in a TV show that you haven't secured the rights to use in home video.

It seems the movie studios finally got this right. Some old movies are a problem, but I'm not aware of any new release movie in recent years that had to have music substitution or was held up for negotiations... The movie producers are sewing up the home video rights before putting the song in the movie, period. Done deal.

IF the TV studios would do this, then we wouldn't have any problems except for the really old stuff.

My guess on Drew Carey is that the network (ABC I believe) never thought it would last... so they didn't bother... then the show ran something like 9 seasons I think... and then they found themselves with a problem... a show that had music that they didn't secure home video rights to release. That's on the studio, and not the musician.

Even IF the musician wants too much money... it still is the fault of the TV studio because IF they didn't secure all the distribution rights, they never should have put the music in the show.

Excellent post, and I agree with 100% of it.