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Comment by doublerabbit | Hacker News Reader

> Most recent example - I was watching Malcolm in the Middle on Disney+ with my girlfriend, and we found that there are entire audio tracks missing in multiple episodes.

The licenses for the song tracks have also expired; so they removed these too. The main noticeable difference is being the intro sequence originally sung by There Might be Giants which has been replaced with a less-impressive cover that ruins the vibe.

Why can't these tracks just forever live with the series? I went and bought the DVD box-set just because of such. A £2 purchase that I than ripped to my NAS.

I've not watched the latest remake because I don't want to ruin the original vibe of such a great show.

Real acting, real filming; the last of it's kind.

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> That's because the license for the tracks expired

They're talking about pieces of dialogue in the show, not licensed music.

If they're shouting at neighbours through a wall I'd be willing to bet that the dialogue is happening because of loud copyrighted music being played at the same time. They probably just did some automated music detection and cut the whole audio track in those sections.

Edit: I lost the bet and there's no notable music involved: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pu8-dxRkoTI

I know. And I am commenting on that the licensed music within the series has been replaced due to expired licensing for which that itself is ridiculous.

Re-licensing music is a two-fold challenge. Sometimes it's much more efficient to use substitute music, instead of negotiating for new rights.

First, licensing arrangements for "all marketing channels" only account for the channels that exist at the time. When a new market channel opens up, such as streaming, music labels will require new licensing terms for that channel. If they don't, they might not get paid. (TV & movie studios are just as ruthless as music labels).

Second, in turn, the labels often have to get new permission from artists for the new channel. Tracking down all artists can be a challenge and require resources that they can't recoup.

And all that just strengthens the case for piracy: you actually get the original thing.

"More efficient" implies that the result is equivalent but it's not.

Hah! How soon 'till some MBA comes up with a scheme to start licensing movies one word at a time?

Don't worry. Now that you can license actors 'likeness' for AI generation, they'll be replacing the people in the shows soon too.

I have never seen an episode that had a cover of the theme song.

Maybe that was a thing with the new reboot? I don't know because I heard nothing that made me want to watch it.

Yeah I'm pretty sure those kids were broken filming that show. There's a reason Dewey didn't want to come back.

This is a good point. Another problem with streaming services, specifically for music streaming services, is that they can change the track of a previously released album with no user choice to hear the original. Example: Track 4 of Elephunk by the Black Eyed Peas. It was universally replaced with the “clean” version of the song. I’m not a fan of rewriting history.

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