Comment by macNchz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by macNchz | Hacker News Reader

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Sometimes these edits can be pretty subtle as well: a while ago my wife and I started watching the original early-90s Beverly Hills 90210 on one of the streaming platforms. It’s a kind of absurd and fun pop-cultural time capsule of a show. After a few episodes, though, I started to realize there was something not quite right.

It turns out that much of the music featured in the original airing of the show wasn’t licensed in a way it could be used long term, and over the years it has been replaced with terrible stock songs or jarringly anachronistic choices that sound totally out of place.

Entire scenes and episodes have been cut from the seasons distributed on streaming platforms, because they featured live concerts that couldn’t be edited. The original had performances by the Flaming Lips, among many others, that simply can’t be watched now, except if by chance someone copied an old VHS to YouTube.

Music was a big part of the original show–in addition to the live shows it featured all sorts of great pop songs from the time, which was part of why it was such a hit with teenagers when it aired. It’s such a bummer they stripped it all out!

There are some places online with copies of early DVD releases that have more music, but still not all of it. The original is locked away in a vault somewhere and almost certainly won’t ever be enjoyed in a complete state.

So many shows are unavailable or different because of ridiculous licensing rules around music. Scrubs has several different versions of music, The Drew Carey Show is basically impossible to find because of music. If Congress wanted to ever do something pro-consumer, passing a law that ends all this nonsense around licensing and require all licensing to be delivery method agnostic. whether a show is premiering, a rerun, syndicated, streamed, or on DVD it should be the same show.

The State on MTV is one of these too. They had an interesting deal where they could use literally the entire MTV catalog of music for the show, but didn't have license to use any of it for distribution of the show afterwards. That made producing the show cheap, and up'd the quality since you'd have these hilariously scenes of mock teenage angst or whatever with REM's "Everybody Hurts" playing in the background. But in the long run, it sort of hurt a lot of careers of the comedians since the music was so entwined in the sketches distribution was all but impossible, and much of the future work from them are themselves cult hits, but haven't really become part of the cultural fabric. Comedies like Wet Hot American Summer or Drop Dead Gorgeous or Super Troopers.

I noticed lots of set decorations (posters, pictures, etc) are blurred out too. So incredibly sad.

That's a bummer. Pirated episodes are as you would expect of very low quality, being taped from home almost 30 years ago.

We can't forget WKRP in Cincinatti, which had so much good music of the time, and even referenced it in the show which made for some butchered edits.

The most egregious example is from the classic "Turkeys Away" episode, there was a whole joke about Pink Floyd's "Dogs" which Johnny Fever was playing at the time. In the edited version Mr. Carlson just walks out mid-conversation.

> So many shows are unavailable or different because of ridiculous licensing rules around music. Scrubs has several different versions of music, The Drew Carey Show is basically impossible to find because of music. If Congress wanted to ever do something pro-consumer, passing a law that ends all this nonsense around licensing and require all licensing to be delivery method agnostic. whether a show is premiering, a rerun, syndicated, streamed, or on DVD it should be the same show.

And everyone knows that answer will be: "nothing stops potential distributors from licensing music now and releasing originals, the fact they are not willing to pay is not copyright holders problem". And there's some truth to it, licensing costs back then were lower because they were time constrained. No one would pay more for broadly licensed music in throwaway series. No one knew they would have lasting impact on popculture.

“Adventures in good music” with Karl Hass is likely offline forever due to licensing issues, sadly.

> So many shows are unavailable or different because of ridiculous licensing rules around music.

Or, often, because the original production bought licenses imagining more limited uses than later distribution opportunities presented, and chose not to spend extra money for things they didn’t expect to need.

> Scrubs has several different versions of music

Is there a list of the differences somewhere? I remember that show having a very good soundtrack.

Same for "Married... with Children". They replaced the iconic "Love and Marriage" theme song with elevator music.

WTF? That's incredibly sad. Suddenly I'm interested in DVDs again.

This same music licensing issue happened to Charmed as well. The opening credits theme is gone; the guest bands that played at the end of each episode are gone. A ton of late 90s early 2000s culture, just... gone. No one who watches that show today will ever understand why it was enjoyable to those who originally watched it.

Now I'm really wondering if they cut that from the German dubs, or if I didn't pay attention, or if I simply didn't watch enough episodes, or not in full.

I think this is common in the move from TV to DVD.

From what I understand, TV broadcasts (at least in the US/UK) have a general/blanket exemption for copyrights w.r.t to things like music (RIAA). So no restriction when airing episodes, you can pick what music you like.

When looking to distribute DVDs however you have to get permission to use the music/pay for it. So it often gets changed.

Try watching e.g. Friends without the top and bottom cut off, in a legal way.

I hate how the IP owners just can't resist messing up the culture.

Part of my job involves reviewing IP licenses. We don't negotiate technical details like aspect ratios. (Some IP owners do, like Disney.)

The decision to mutilate Friends was made by a software engineer (working for the Licensee) who couldn't be bothered to add black bars or convert ratios because "reasons."

The original was filmed in 1.33:1 then cropped down to 4:3.

For the streaming platforms, they chose to crop it the other way:

https://i.imgur.io/sbdIoxd_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&f...

IMO they should just split the difference and stream the full original 1.33:1 with (smaller) black bars.

Showing the original film means showing things the director thought would be out of frame.

In the 90s, film directors would often consider both the cinema and TV ratios, but TV directors? I kind of doubt it; changing the framing might be interesting, but it's not a good way to show it, IHMO. Debates over overscan are fine, but if it wasn't part of the original broadcast, and wasn't part of the directors' intent to be shown, it shouldn't be part of any distribution.

> The original was filmed in 1.33:1 then cropped down to 4:3.

It was filmed at 1.37:1. 1.33:1 would be almost indistinguishable from 4:3 (its 3.99:3)

Ok interesting. Ye I guess much of these thing happen at random really.

The DVDs are probably 4:3, right? Just gotta go to enough thrift stores...

Maybe. I haven't looked too hard. Just got pissed off by scenes being so much harder to follow.

This happens to computer games as well.

>Poker Night at the Inventory was delisted from Steam on May 23rd, 2019. Although Telltale did not offer the same kind of explanation that they did regarding Poker Night 2, the game was likely delisted due to expired licensing of one or more of the properties featured in the game.

And Grand Theft Auto.

Songs were ganked from GTA3: San Andreas, as well as GTA4 and its expansions.

I think in the latter case there might have been a couple replacements, but still.

This also happened to Northern Exposure. I have one of the only full copies in the world with the original music.

As a big fan of the show I'm curious how you know this. Do you have more information on the edition you own?

Now I'm even more pissed at whoever stole my box set. I learned of a bunch of great music from that show.

Yeah that's what was so tragic, the music was an integral, unique part of the show. They replaced it with this bizarre elevator music.

Also see: WKRC in Cincinnati, The Wonder Years, Beavis and Butthead

For these the loss of the original music was such an issue they eventually did (or attempted) to re-release with everything as it was. But don't trust things to always be like that. It holds for almost everything: if you want to keep something as-is the best thing is to store your own copy, second best is to rely on an archivist to store a copy but even that's risky.

Same thing with Supernatural. Season one especially was a Classic Rock masterpiece, but when the show hit Netflix they had to replace all the music due to licensing. :-C

This is a disturbing form of digital gaslighting.

I understand this basically ruined a lot of the feel of Supernatural if you never saw it on air.

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