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Comment by jjulius | Hacker News Reader

Not to go off on a complete tangent, but...

>... like the infamous Duff Beer joke being out of frame in The Simpsons.

My collection of The Simpsons, seasons 1-13, are all TV rips from waaaaayyyyy back in the 00's. Sure, it's not super high-quality, but at least they don't look like the ugly remasters (on some of the ones I've tried watching on Disney+, they look like someone's drawn over the old cells), the aspect ratio is the original so nothing's missing and, as a personal bonus, they've got the old Q13 logo in the bottom (I grew up in western WA). They still look great on my newer TV.

Edit: Oh, and the Michael Jackson episode never suddenly disappeared from my library.

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To me it is the difference between art and product.

A show like The Simpsons is both. The viewers care about the art, and we tolerate the product to get it. The creators are creating art, compromising with the corporation and broadcaster to make it enough of a product. But the corp/broadcaster only care about the product. The art is the chocolate around the advertising pill.

So when the product-minded people control preservation and resharing of the product, the art always gets compromised. Jokes are clipped. Audio is broken. Episodes are pulled. For all the wrong reasons.

The terminology is art vs content. Anybody talking about "content", by definition, do not actually care about what that content is, just that it is contained into something they charge for.

This is a great example of when pulling out a dictionary implies that you've lost the argument, because if people were using the word in the same sense as the dictionary definition, you would have no need of the dictionary to “prove” the meaning.

User toyg is using the same definition than Richard Stallman (I tried to find the relevant essay but can't; I just remember RMS also pushed back against "content"). Toyg is not making up a new line of thought, this has been argued before. Not only by Stallman, either, this dislike for the term "content" is also espoused by some here on HN (and I agree, to be clear).

I think it goes beyond latching on the dictionary definition, and really looking into how platform owners see the bits they push around. It's not about being "clever" with words to score a point, but actually about the meaning we want to give art, be it novels, drawings, music or shows/movies.

If they said “platform owners” I'd give them credit for that, but they didn't; they said “anyone”.

Context matters.

Also, "platform owners" (or advertisers, as another comment puts it) managed to install this term and so most of us use it, so it's no longer just platform owners. Which is why RMS railed against it.

No I don’t think that’s what I’m going for.

To me content often implies a kind of volume of work. Always be posting. Don’t miss a few days or your viewers go elsewhere. Lots and lots of content!

The concerns of a product are the salability. Is has to fit perfectly into a 22 mins slot. It can’t upset the wrong people. It has to fit the mood and culture that our advertisers want. Etc.

You seem to be violently agreeing with the parent commenter. What you're saying matches their definition.

No, it doesn't. You get good at something by doing it a lot, consistently; it's basically rule 1 of learning any artform.

This still doesn't contradict the framing of "art vs content".

It absolutely does for a movie.

Of course it implies volume - shipped volume. Which is what you worry about when you think about posting every day: viewers going elsewhere is a commercial worry about your product, it has nothing to do with the quality of your art. When you think in terms of content, art quality becomes an optional byproduct of commercial worries about having product.

Your point is valid (and I make a similar one frequently), but it doesn't gain from being presented as good term vs bad term use. It's the context that makes it pejorative.

In the context of advertisers, content is just what you deliver for a price (Netflix, Disney), or against which you slap advertising (Youtube). You want more of it so you can charge more, and care little what fills this content pipeline.

Same with Beavis and Butthead with all its music videos, it seems like it cant be properly released with alm that intact so its up to King Turd to do the dirty work and make it avaikable to all

This happens with any TV or Movie that has music, and its incredibly frustrating. Always best to download to not confuse yourself as to why the media is somehow different than you remember.

Ironically, tho, sometimes I wish there was a parallel collection without the music videos because I kind of enjoy their actual real-world misadventures and them being "on the road" out in public (menace) more than the hilarious music video critique sessions

They are unlikely partners. And yet it is the model that allows arts to get something out there while it gets exploited for gains. But at the end those with the money make the final call.

Alas, we would hope that it would be the best art that gets preserved but a lot of the time it is some of the most mass produced.

For classic simpsons seasons, you can find DVDs on eBay for pretty cheap with the original crops and commentary tracks. I hear there are are rips of those available too.

Oh sure, and I've considered that move a few times. It's definitely something I'll do in the future if the quality of these rips begins to look worse on newer TVs.

I think the biggest thinking preventing me from pulling that trigger is the charm of the old TV station logo in the bottom of each episode that's from the same local station I grew up watching the show on. Even many of the end credits have a little side chyron pop out with the evening's programming schedule on it. It's super nostalgic for me, and it almost feels wrong to watch the show without any of that.

Edit: https://share.google/RGONMiVEStvc54fyM

I managed to grab season 1 thru 10 on DVD for $15. Ripped them to storage, probably the best presentation you can get out of it.

But some of those old rips hold up. Not great but they will do.

A few years ago I did see a rip that pushed the limits of codecs. It was, at that point, every season of Futurama before Hulu brought it back but it fit on a single layer DVD. It was squeezed just a little too much as that was something like 100ish episodes. But neat to see.

There was an episode in one of the earlier seasons where Homer falls asleep while driving with a dreamlike montage and when it aired it had this nice little guitar melody, but the song was replaced in all later inatances.

I still get that original melody stuck in my head because I must have watched the original dizens of times from VHS, but I've never been able to find it again.

Does it sort of sound like the DreamWorks theme song, did the moon and stars help put Homer to bed even while he was "driving"?

Its Golden Slumbers by The Beatles done on an acoustic guitar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgw8MEwTVwM&t=51

Disney has the 1.33 OAR Simpsons now, but you have to select the option. I don't watch it on there because it looks too clean and waxy for my tastes.

you need to upload that torrent :)

What MJ episode?!

They must be thinking of John Jay Smith's guest episode.

CHALMERS: Yes, and you call him John Jay Smith despite the fact that the voice is obviously Michael Jackson's.

The one where Homer wears a pink shirt to work, gets send to a hospital, meets a fat bloke that claims to be Michael Jackson, voiced by Michael Jackson except for the singing parts, which were sung by a Michael Jackson impersonator and all of it credited to some made up name.

Has the “Lisa it’s your birthday”-song.

This is the key, streaming content providers delete and edit things to match the feeling of society at the moment or perceived societal pressures. Really not how history should work imho

It's one reason why copyright protection should not be granted without escrow of the original.

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