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The First CT Title Is Released40 Replies to “The First CT Title Is Released”Commenting at Satellite News
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Silhouettes! There is a God!
10 days until shipment?!? There is no God!
Hm. Love hearing J. Elvis’ Tom-voice again… but it’s so hard to associate that with, well, a human being. As for the riffing… I dunno. Maybe I’ve just gotten really really used to… the “punchier” stuff from season 5 and on of MST (and to some degree the first season), but sure, I’ll give this a go. (“Skank Detector” gave me a chuckle, if only because, again, J. Elvis. God, I love that voice.)
Looks cool so far. can’t wait until I get it.
I’m very unhappy that we cannot download it tonight, Kinda threw us for a loop there. :cry:
Wish the video was longer/showed us more stuff like skits etc. Although I am glad to have an idea of what it will be.
But overall I think it will be great. we have to go into it knowing that is not MSt3k.
I personally am glad to have Rifftrax and CT doing different things.
Wonder how many DvD’s will be ordered tonight :lol:
Order placed!
I still wish for a fuller package (artwork, etc.) instead of a plain DVD in an envelope, but I’ll make my own case label if I have to. Hopefully, if the demand is strong, they’ll get a real distributor eventually. I’d even re-buy if that happened.
Even though I tend to prefer the Mike, Kevin and Bill Crew in terms of comedy….This looks really well done. The new
silhouette idea are great and I hope mallon sucks on that..This will be ordered by me..
Speaking of Mallon, any word on what’s up at mst3k.com? I thought the cartoons were supposed to be weekly. Is Mallon rethinking after the, to put it charitably, less than enthusiastic response to the first four?
By the way, I saw J. Elvis doing standup the other night in Frank’s “Cartoon Dump” live show, and he sounded very little like Tom Servo. So it’s funny to think he’s specially putting on his old riffing voice for CT.
I haven’t heard about the official site. My main complaint with it is that all the people that made MST great gone thrown out with the trash. Mikes Film crew may not come back cause of the crap rhino and best brains gave him…and Jim basically let the series rot for 8 years….till the talent started bring back mega interest in new mst type material..
“Not available in your country”.
Bugger. :sad: :mad:
clickclickORDERclick…aaaahhhhhhhhhh
Must remember this isn’t MST3K, keep the mind open. The trailer looks good, thanks for the silhouetes!
A further comment on the MST3K official site; hey Mallon, how about letting the first four KTMA episodes see the light of day? You might find the fans a little more receptive to your efforts if you’d give us what we’ve been clamoring for for years now..just a thought.
Digital Trucker: It’s interesting–I’ve always assumed, along with everybody else, that Jim has control over those KTMA episodes. But recently someone very knowledgable on this issue told me that Jim may not have the authority to release them. Seems those episodes were produced and copyrighted under “Hair Brain Productions,” a company Joel controlled, I was told, not “Best Brains.” So in fact it may be Joel, not Jim, who would have to sign off on releasing those the first four KTMAs.
Really sucks about the Download thing. I feel bad cause you know this thing will be pirated to hell. So when the DLs do become available, their sales are gonna be pretty sucky. :(
Sampo,
That “Hair Brain” info is intriguing, indeed. I hope you’re able to find out a little more information about it some day. (Though I understand the stated positions of various Brains regarding the pre-Cambrian nature of those episodes, I’m not of the opinion that we’ll see them)
I really enjoyed the trailer. I think my favorite line was “They ransacked my apartment!”
As far as I know, none of the KTMAs can ever be released. They didn’t even bother to license the films at the time, so they were technically illegally produced in the first place. (I suppose they *could* license them after the fact, but most are unlikely to agree – like Space: 1999 (Cosmic Princess) or “real” films like City on Fire.)
And I’m pretty sure Best Brains controls the material, no matter who the production company was at the time. KTMA material has been used in “making of” documentaries and retrospectives, so I’m sure that BB has the material and the rights to it. (No “KTMA footage courtesy of Hair Brain” notices or anything like that.)
So, what BB *could* do is at least release all the host segments from KTMA, which are not troubled by licensing issues and would allow people like the guys at the Digital Archive Project to assemble better, cleaner versions of the whole episodes that can be found in the wild. (And intrepid film editors could even put together “mock-ups” of 1 – 4 using the unriffed original material.) BB could even do a “KTMA Host Segments” DVD and the kids would buy it up like mad.
Phillip–
And I’m pretty sure Best Brains controls the material, no matter who the production company was at the time.
That was the conventional wisdom, but it appears that may have been mistaken.
KTMA material has been used in “making of” documentaries and retrospectives, so I’m sure that BB has the material and the rights to it. (No “KTMA footage courtesy of Hair Brain” notices or anything like that.)
I believe the documentaries, etc. were all made in a period where Joel was around to give permission. And yes, the movie rights issue would have to be dealt with, but the host segments are copyrighted under the Hair Brain name. Permissions would have to be granted, according to my information. I’ll try to get more info if I can.
I was always under the assumption that people meant “Under the table” in regards to the KTMAs. I dont see how he could have or ever would have released them any other way. And by under the table, i mean having some fan run off VHS copies and “leak” them to traders. And possibly even first making copies of copies and/or make it look like they were recorded from the original broadcast. I dunno how that would be done but I never thought people meant official releases, unless they just meant everything other than the movie segments.
Very impressed with this trailer! :cool:
The silhouettes will take me a bit to get used to (along with the visual shadow gags), but I’m all for it! The jokes were very funny, and I can’t wait to buy this on DVD.
Since it is the Holiday season I’ll wait until 2008 begins before I order. Not upset about the DVD just being in an envelope (as long as it doesn’t get scratched) since I can easily make a cover to print and put the DVD in a new plastic case (besides, it makes the price lower probably).
2008 is looking better than 2007 already! :)
I also had to adjust to the way the silhouettes looked. In my mind I kept wanting to see the movie seats at the bottom. Oh well. I got used to silhouettes once with MST, I can make the adjustment again.
I liked the trailer. I bought the DVD. If I can’t get new MST episodes, then I’ll support the next best thing from Joel and Mike.
It’s certainly nice to have my cheesy movie fix taken care of again!
:cry: No PayPal, just plastic money?! Rats!!! #%@$!!
“They didn’t even bother to license the films at the time, so they were technically illegally produced in the first place.”
I hear this a lot, especially as an excuse for why the KTMA episodes can never be licensed, but I’ve never seen a source.
Does using a movie for MST3K require different rights than ordinary broadcast rights? Or is the suggestion that KTMA was simply screening films without getting the rights to them?
Either seems kind of unlikely, and as Philip points out, even if it were true, there’s no reason why this would necessarily make the KTMA episodes any more difficult to license than the cable episodes (any ownership issues over the episodes themselves aside, of course).
I wonder if Rhino is giving any thought to a 20th anniversary box set? It would be nice to see a KTMA on that one. Maybe “The Last Chase.” As I recall, it’s a Crown film, and Rhino has licensed their films before (c.f., “The Sidehackers”).
Does using a movie for MST3K require different rights than ordinary broadcast rights?
The short answer is yes. While I don’t know the exact legal distinctions, the sort of rights agreement a TV station gets to just run a movie is different from the sort of agreement you would have to get to incorporate the movie into an original TV show.
“Does using a movie for MST3K require different rights than ordinary broadcast rights?”
The “legal distinction” Sampo referred to is the concept of the “derivative work”, which is any work based on a pre-existing work (such as a movie adaptation).
The Wikipedia actually explains this one pretty well. It quotes the appropriate Copyright Office document:
“Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work. The owner is generally the author or someone who has obtained rights from the author.”
And:
“The copyright in a . . . derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material.”
As they did not receive permission to use the preexisting material, the whole of the KTMA season is comprised of unauthorized derivative works. In these kinds of cases, the courts (should they get involved) tend to give full control of the derivative work to the original copyright holder unless a deal can be worked out.
The question for the KTMA episodes and the potential for a release of the host segments would be whether you would only consider the theater sections as the derivative work or if each episode as a whole would be considered a single, derivative work. If it is the latter, then, for instance, the copyright holders of “Space: 1999” would have a claim over every second of Episode K10, host segments and all.
Oh, and I finished my DVD case label for “The Oozing Skull”. You can get it here:
http://www.edwoodonline.com/pix/CT-TOS.jpg
Not available in my country. They seem not to remember the ‘thatnks to all MSTies worldwide’ concept… still, if they wanna limit their sales, this is the way to do it.
From the clip that I was allowed to see, it looked OK-ish. Bit limp.
I apologise for my crud-tacular typing in m,y previous comment!
Adam
Yeah it’s USA only for the moment. :cry:
I always thought that the reasoning behind not releasing the KTMA-era episodes was more a question of quality than of rights…you know, the same reason Best Brains asked Comedy Central not to rerun season one episodes anymore. Personally, I always consitered seasons 2-4 as being when the series peaked, with KTMA and season 1 being somewhere in the middle (on the quality scale) and season 5 showing a bit (but not much) of a decline.
As for Cinematic Titanic, well…I was pleased with what I saw but don’t have the means to buy it (i.e. I have no credit card.) The jokes would’ve been funnier if I had them in context (i.e., if I had seen them as part of a whole rather than a trailer.) Loved the “car milking it’s death scene” bit.
And, as for the USA-only release–do you guys honestly think that the CT crew was trying to restrict things? I feel it’s more likely due to crummy distributioners (that a word?) than the crew “not remembering the ‘thatnks to all MSTies worldwide’ concept.”
On an unrelated note, does anyone know why this entry is taking a backseat to the Christmas tradition? I feel that this is more important, and if I hadn’t scrolled down I would’ve missed it.
Philip Frey (aka Rhindle the Red):
That is a great cover! I’ll try to make my own still, but chances are that I’ll just use yours since it looks very professional. :D
Wack’d:
I always thought that the reasoning behind not releasing the KTMA-era episodes was more a question of quality than of rights…you know, the same reason Best Brains asked Comedy Central not to rerun season one episodes anymore.
Yes, there is the issue of Best Brains choosing not to release KTMA, and there are the movie rights problems. All I was saying in my post is that, in addition to that, there maybe further legal entanglements even regarding the host segments.
On an unrelated note, does anyone know why this entry is taking a backseat to the Christmas tradition? I feel that this is more important, and if I hadn’t scrolled down I would’ve missed it.
We traditionally keep the greeting at the top of the list until after the holidays, but, yeah, maybe a note to tell people to scroll down might be in order. Good idea.
I agree that they probably haven’t resricted it to a USA only release on purpose, but they could have warned us first. It looks like EZtakes doesn’t ship anything at all much outside the US, so they could have made that known before hand. My heart sank the second that “not available in your country” box popped up.
Thank goodness for Rifftrax!
The trailer is great and riffs made me laugh. Love the jazzy music. Would be great if it’s the show’s theme song.
One good thing about “Titans” playing themselves is there is no good reason why, say, if Mary Jo should decide she has to go write another book, or “Elvis” is called in to write “The Knocked up Virgin Part Two”, the Film Crewers couldn’t step in to take their place on the scaffold for a Titantic episode or two…yes?
“It looks like EZtakes doesn’t ship anything at all much outside the US, so they could have made that known before hand.”
I think it’s DVD Wagon (the DVD recording arm) that can’t ship outside the US. And Joel’s post makes it clear that there was a goofup concerning the digital distribution rights. So, in all liklihood, they expected to have the digital distribution option available for most areas. (Not sure, though. The EZTakes Site isn’t clear on which regions besides the US they can distribute to.)
“The trailer is great and riffs made me laugh. Love the jazzy music.”
I know what you mean. I don’t remember the last time I watched a single one and a half minute video clip over and over again.
Sucky – they choose an obscure distributor to keep costs down (I would surmise), but get drastically reduced distribution so sell less product anyway…
Looks like us ‘out-of-towners’ will have to scour the secondary markets for this, paying a premium.
Kudos to the Film Crew for making their product more readily available.
@Stephan
Again, I think it’s clear that CT thought they could get the digital distribution angle all set much easier. Growing pains. They’ll do better in the future.
Also, since these DVDs are produced “on demand”, there will be no secondary market. (Maybe you can make a deal with someone in the US or something, but that is most likely a violation of the Terms of Use.)
As for your “kudos” to the Film Crew, I’ll point out two things:
First, note the 2005 copyright notice on the Film Crew DVDs. (At least on ‘Giant of Marathon’ – the one I have.) That’s upwards of two years from production to distribution compared to, what, two weeks for CT?
Second, note who holds the copyright on the Film Crew stuff: Shout! Factory. It’s much easier to get stuff done if you have corporate backing. CT is much more of a do-it-yourself endeavor.
Now, I’m not saying one is intrinsically better than the other. I, for one, prefer factory DVDs (a la Film Crew), but I like the idea of a quick turnaround (a la CT). They both have advantages and disadvantages.
I’m sure CT will work out these distribution kinks. If they find the demand is strong enough for other territories, they will secure the rights. But as this is a new way of doing things, there are bound to be problems at the beginning.
Yay! Go Team C.T.! :grin:
Shame on anyone who isn’t mess-their-pants happy about this. I love the shadows, swanky music, and most of all, I love that the old team is finally back together. (Only this time sweet, sweet Mary Jo finally gets to do her thang in the theater.)
I haven’t been this happy since “second gen” MST3K was brought back on the Sci Fi channel.
Oh, and I’ve updated the label art (adding a mention of cinematictitanic.com and a copyright notice), so if any of the seventy-plus people (!) who downloaded it want the latest version, mozey on over to:
http://www.edwoodonline.com/pix/CT-TOS.jpg
Brilliant! I ordered the Cinematic Titanic DVD on the day it was announced it was available even though I was on vacation 3,000 miles from home at the time. Now that I’m home I’m hopefully a few days closer to it being shipped to me. I am so happy they are selling it as a DVD rather than as a download. If they could only do one format at the moment then I believe they chose the “right” one. Ten-day shipping time? I guess I can wait that long even though I want to see it now, now, NOW!
Thanks once again to Satellite News for posting that the DVD was available the moment it happened.
Well, I got an email today saying that my DVD will ship “on or before” January 9th.
“The 9th!” I thought. “I ordered on December 20th!”
Well, sure enough, I did the math and if you assume they got the same days off for the holidays that I did, the 9th is 10 business days later.
Sheesh.
And here I was thinking it would arrive any day now, but there’s still and *eternity* to go! (At least it feels like it.)
Maybe this excrutiating wait is intentional in order to get us all to learn to love digital distribution. ;)
I’ve been reading a few posts and really and enjoy your writing. I’m just starting up my own xbox tweak blog and only hope that I can write as well and give so much insight.