Lots of rage and news about the “abridged edition” of Its A Wonderful Life (without the main alternate reality scenes) that’s on Amazon Prime. Interestingly it’s not censorship. Seems it’s a version that was created to get round a copyright loophole. >> - ThreadSky

gralefrit.bsky.social • 72 days ago

Lots of rage and news about the “abridged edition” of Its A Wonderful Life (without the main alternate reality scenes) that’s on Amazon Prime.

Interestingly it’s not censorship. Seems it’s a version that was created to get round a copyright loophole.

>>

Comments

fionnuisce.bsky.social•72 days ago

I don't understand what would be left? A guy considers suicide but an angel appears and tells him his family would be sad if he did?

simonsmith.bsky.social•72 days ago

Full version is on ITV streaming atm.

I’m struggling to understand how the Amazon version works. ‘Sad man crashes car, wakes up, an angel tells him everything is OK’?

Going to have to watch it.

salvey1.bsky.social•72 days ago

I thought of your discussion of this on Comfort Blanket when I saw this story

cancienne.bsky.social•72 days ago

I saw IAWL in the cinema on Christmas Eve and everyone laughed at the Clarence line (re Mary) ‘You won’t like it George! She’s an old maid!’ Made it feel like a solidarity watch with other Comfort Blanket listeners.

cooraysmith.bsky.social•72 days ago

I’m not sure that follows. Ownership of the story and the score is the vessel by which they regained control of the film, but it doesn’t make sense that that doesn’t give them control of a partial edit of it, which will contain the score and be influenced by the story.

gralefrit.bsky.social•72 days ago

I’m not claiming to understand the copyright law myself - just quoting from a story I dug up explaining the attempts to make a version *without* The Greatest Gift in it. For whatever mad reason. I don’t even quite understand why you’d have to manually assert copyright after 28 years…

maik.zumstrull.net•72 days ago

“securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”

The limited times part was being taken seriously until very recently. 28 years is already centuries of lobbying. The first US copyright bill granted seven years.

cooraysmith.bsky.social•72 days ago

The problem with US copyright law is, and always has been, that initial 7 year utopian nonsense. It’s required centuries of patching and wrangling because it is not fit for purpose, and most that patching has been done for and in the interests of corporations.

maik.zumstrull.net•72 days ago

And here I thought the problem was taking it from limited, short term exclusivity as a subsidy for the publishing industry to a fundamentalist cult of total control forever.

But we're agreed that the benefit goes almost entirely to publishers, not authors.

cooraysmith.bsky.social•72 days ago

You’re making the mistake I illustrate in the next two posts. If you want to reform US copyright properly, you need a functional Life + tariff, more ownership by individuals, less abuse of TM and R to artificially extend. Like the rest of the world. Copyright is good. America is just bad at it.

cooraysmith.bsky.social•72 days ago

Whereas in countries with more sensible Life + tariffs (e.g the UK but also the many European countries which derive their rules from France) you’ve not had this absurd systematic patching / abuse of trademarks and so on, resulting in less IP accumulation with corporations, not more.

cooraysmith.bsky.social•72 days ago

In e.g. again the UK, the IP for pretty much every major TV series is with the originating writer. America’s copyright law problems originate in what people on the internet insist is the solution. Even non-Americans. Cos America Brain is real.

gralefrit.bsky.social•72 days ago

But making a version without the alt universe scenes only makes sense if it’s a copyright dodge. Thinking about it, the “never been born” portion isn’t contentious or censorable in any creative sense. I’m not sure you deal with “suicide references” by cutting the sad bit, really.

gralefrit.bsky.social•72 days ago

Maybe what I’m saying is that though “Amazon butcher a piece of art because they’re weird philistines” is the story I (and most of us) want to read, it might be “Amazon butcher a piece of art because they’re rapacious business monsters trying to cut costs.”

tom-phillips.com•72 days ago

Also Amazon didn't do it.

gralefrit.bsky.social•72 days ago

Yeah. That struck me in all the reporting. They’ve got both versions hosted on the platform, but there’s no indication that the abridged version is their handiwork.

gralefrit.bsky.social•72 days ago

Maybe that’s the story I want too. These easy-to-make press stories where people rage at some mad decision usually reveal something that we want and need to believe, rather than a genuine mad decision.

berryh.bsky.social•72 days ago

Yet another reason to buy films you really love on physical media. Despite the fact you will still inevitably search for it on every available streamer rather than get up and put it in the Blu-Ray player.

fornbirkibeinn.bsky.social•72 days ago

Think it's because US law tends to require copyright to be explicitly claimed, rather than automatically coming into being if the work is eligible as with UK copyright law.

cooraysmith.bsky.social•72 days ago

It used to, which is part of why you had to renew films. But the core problem has, ironically, been American favouring of short tariffs; which in practice only benefit people with big lawyer money. Like everything there.

happytoast.bsky.social•72 days ago

I missed this, what happens then? He dives and rescues Clarence but then finds himself back on the bridge with the cop?

jamesmarshall42.bsky.social•72 days ago

I just took a look and it jump cuts from George saying to Clarence the only way he can help is if he has $8000 for him straight to George in the snow running from the bridge yelling “Mary!” 🫣 So it’ll miss Clarence telling George the whole bell ring=angel wing that the last line hangs on 😬

happytoast.bsky.social•72 days ago

Good grief

squirlykat.bsky.social•72 days ago

It’s a Life

jamesmarshall42.bsky.social•72 days ago

😅 THAT’S how you abridge something!

gralefrit.bsky.social•72 days ago

IAWL fell mistakenly into the public domain, but the short story The Greatest Gift on which it’s based - which forms the alt reality section of the movie - was still in copyright, and owned by the studio. To keep putting the movie out via the “dodge”, without paying, you simply cut that part out.

gralefrit.bsky.social•72 days ago

It’s not creative vandalism (well, it is, but not in *that* sense). It’s just a way for a 21stC digital distributor not to pay for something that belongs to someone else. Again. Regardless of the effect on the work or the owners or consumers. MORE FREE SHIT FOR THE PIPE!

clownf1st.bsky.social•72 days ago

That's what I shout when I'm on the toilet.

robmanuelyeah.bsky.social•72 days ago

Might be slightly worse than you think, can't find the link now but Amazon in the past have been caught automatically uploading movies to their platform from pirate sources on the basis, fuck it, take it down if the copyright holder complains. So it might be pure sludge plunder without thought.

tomhannen.ft.com•72 days ago

See the ‘The Woman in Black’ 1989 for example. Pirated subtitles! https://bsky.app/profile/tomhannen.bsky.social/post/3l5ppxfhqis2q

amazingmikeyc.bsky.social•72 days ago

Interesting! I think Amazon has a way for cheapo distributors to just upload any old shite and their curation is arse. They were recommending me loads of those 00s mockbusters too. Not that that makes it better mind.

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