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Too bad. On the other hand, maybe this will spur the revival of a long-out-of-favor social tradition that I greatly miss: visiting our friends' houses for an evening of dance-film (or whatever subject) viewing and good company sitting on easy chairs or on a pillow on the floor...in cozy dens or living rooms. Gee, remember those days? Or am I dating myself? :)

I feel very sad when the only way to enjoy a ballet film is to sit at a work station -- even if it's a desk in a home -- hunched over a tiny computer screen that displays often-fuzzy images. Not everyone's idea of relaxation.

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Yes, it is sad when you don't own (or can't afford to buy) those hundreds of videos "mydiorella" posted excerpts from, and so no longer have a chance to view those performances, however....

As someone who has worked long and hard (months and years) to make a program(s) that were eventually released on dvds (or not yet) with little to no remuneration for it, I can understand why the copyright holders, or those who paid for the distribution/broadcast rights, might be a little upset and request the YT's or whoever do something about it.

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If I could throw my $.02 in, as someone who is working non-stop to make some of these very performances available:

There are a lot of different stakeholders that have to sign off on the clearances to make titles available, including dancers, musicians, choreographers, theaters, stagehands, lighting designers, costume designers, music publishers. As a result, unless its something posted by the dance company or dvd publisher directly, it's violating someone's contractual rights, and these should be taken down. Unfortunately, some permissions are so complicated as a practical matter, that many older performances will likely never see the light of day. As far as what is available on YouTube, assume that it's going to get worse (as far as what is available) before it gets better. Although this is no doubt disappointing to audiences in the short term, over the long term, the situation is improving, and you'll be able to experience performances as never before.

Cheers,

Marc

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Thank you for your effort and your explanation, Marc.

The other day in a post-performance Q&A, an audience member asked Pacific Northwest Ballet's James Moore if he saw much of other companies, and he answered, yes, there was lots on YouTube. Which makes me long for the day that more and more videos of older dancers are released, so that today's dancers' video experience isn't starting with the equivalent of a young opera singer hearing not much released earlier than Pavarotti or Domingo.

As an audience member, I understand the difficulties, but I want it all now. I won't argue that this isn't immature or greedy, but it's true.

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Many of my DVD purchases have been made after viewing samples on YouTube. Similarly, if I'm booking tickets for a company I'm unfamiliar with, I'll look up clips to find out which dancers I should try to see. I recently spent about twice as much as I planned on tickets for the Bolshoi visit to London as a direct result of watching some amazing clips on lexxrussia's channel.

I can't suggest any legal or moral justification for allowing copyright stuff on YT; just the pragmatic one that it may not be hurting the copyright holders as much as they think.

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I absolutely agree with Hawfinch those clips are short, rarely featuring all performances and usually they work as advertisements.

If i really like something on YouTube i am likely to buy it. Or will be wanting to see the dancers live.

Many Ballet companies i see understand this and are launching their own YouTube channels. I hope the vids of diorella's channel will be back i loved them!

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I understand how the wide viewership of YT can be a means of disseminating knowledge about a dancer or company, and possibly leading the viewer to pursue an interest by attending a performance or buying a video...But what about the filmmaker? Or all those technicians TenduTV mentioned in his post? If the filmmaker is NOT being paid by the dance company to advertise them, or YT or other distributor is NOT paying the filmmaker for their footage, or downloads, and a dvd is not available, then the filmmaker makes nothing and has worked weeks, months, in some cases years, with no remuneration so viewers get a free view. Maybe it's just me, maybe it's the economy now, but I don't think that is fair. Escpecially, when it is the theater owners, or dvd/distributors who get the 'lion's share' of any profits that are made from viewers rushing out to buy a ticket or dvd after viewing something on YT.

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Escpecially, when it is the theater owners, or dvd/distributors who get the 'lion's share' of any profits that are made from viewers rushing out to buy a ticket or dvd after viewing something on YT.

Maybe I don't understand the business model, but apart from foundation grants or donations, how does a film earn revenue besides DVD sales or runs in a movie theater or money from a TV station that shows the film?

If running the video on YouTube increases DVD sales and movie theater ticket sales, however much the distributor or the theater operator takes, that is additional direct revenue generated. Indirect revenue comes from people who buy tickets to a live performance, like the work, and buy the DVD's so that they can see it again or go to see it on a big screen. Or by helping to create a more educated audience, becoming interested in a new art form, or recommending it to someone else (like people do here).

Unless YouTube keeps people from buying the DVD or going to the theater more than it increases sales in those areas, not showing it on YouTube generates nothing.

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Escpecially, when it is the theater owners, or dvd/distributors who get the 'lion's share' of any profits that are made from viewers rushing out to buy a ticket or dvd after viewing something on YT.

Maybe I don't understand the business model, but apart from foundation grants or donations, how does a film earn revenue besides DVD sales or runs in a movie theater or money from a TV station that shows the film?

If running the video on YouTube increases DVD sales and movie theater ticket sales, however much the distributor or the theater operator takes, that is additional direct revenue generated. Indirect revenue comes from people who buy tickets to a live performance, like the work, and buy the DVD's so that they can see it again or go to see it on a big screen. Or by helping to create a more educated audience, becoming interested in a new art form, or recommending it to someone else (like people do here).

Unless YouTube keeps people from buying the DVD or going to the theater more than it increases sales in those areas, not showing it on YouTube generates nothing.

Additionally a lot of the videos being taken down are pirated live performances (especially common in Russia). There are no "filmmakers" whose rights are being violated. The performers didn't grant permission, nor did the companies (I don't know the technical legalities, but clearly this IS illegal) but ultimately performances that would otherwise not be available to people are. The availability of these videos is not going to stop people from going to see these performers and these ballets. What it is doing is exposing people to them. Would I have gone and seen Osipova as a visiting guest with ABT without prior exposure to her? Yes, probably. Would I have gone to see all 3 of her performances had I not been familiar with her work from youtube? No, probably not.

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Some ballet organisations do indeed seem to appreciate YouTube as a promotional tool and as a means of disseminating a choreographer's work. Others seems to resent it for the same reason. Was there any Balanchine on mydiorella's channel? The Trust eats YouTube channels for breakfast. link

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Thank you, for that LINK to Apollinaiare Scherr's "Foot in Mouth" blog. It's good to see this story being taken up by more and more members of the community of ballet lovers.

Perhaps the discussion will make some ballet organizations rethink their position on the question of intellectual rights versus the benefits of being seen by a larger audience.

It was also nice to find our own member and frequent poster Paul Parrish quoted -- as well as a link to Ballet Talk.

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I think there's an errant assumption being made - that it's always the ballet companies who are preventing materials from being made available. Often, this is not the case. Ten years ago, yes, but not today.

There is going to be a trade-off, however. Older video will be harder to come by, while new video will be much higher quality.

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The entertainment world can be very difficult, everything could be held up by the production company. Two excellent examples in film: James Bond Untitled movie and The Hobbit movie both held up by their production company fiscal straits in the midst of a failed merger and possible bankruptcy. Films get held up by these issues all the time, getting copyright approval on an old ballet from the 70's is no different.

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Some ballet organisations do indeed seem to appreciate YouTube as a promotional tool and as a means of disseminating a choreographer's work. Others seems to resent it for the same reason. Was there any Balanchine on mydiorella's channel? The Trust eats YouTube channels for breakfast. link

No, there were not any Balanchine videos on mydiorella.

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The entertainment world can be very difficult, everything could be held up by the production company. Two excellent examples in film: James Bond Untitled movie and The Hobbit movie both held up by their production company fiscal straits in the midst of a failed merger and possible bankruptcy. Films get held up by these issues all the time, getting copyright approval on an old ballet from the 70's is no different.

Even when there is a clear path to get clearances, it's not always financially feasible. I was recently told of not- untypical situation where certain rights were being backcleared. When it came to the orchestra, the organization had to go back into its records and not only find out who was in the performance, but everyone who had participated in even a single rehearsal. Then each orchestra member (or their estate) had to be notified, paid, etc. For every $1 in payments, it cost $10 in expenses.

Also - if you would like to curse someone broadly every time a work is withdrawn or unavailable, the target of your wrath should be Sonny Bono, not the Balanchine Trust.

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Interesting -- I hadn't known this either.

From wikipedia

Bono was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1994 to represent California's 44th congressional district. He was one of twelve co-sponsors of a House bill extending copyright.[9] Although that bill was never voted on in the Senate, a similar Senate bill was passed after his death and named the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in his memory.

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The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act added 20 years to all existing and future copyrights. He had lobbied hard for this during his life, while a Congressman from the Palm Springs area, and it was named in his honor when it passed into law in 1998 after his death.

Here's a good summary of the main changes in the Copyright law:

http://www.keytlaw.com/Copyrights/sonybono.htm

This is a great thing for creative people who want to extend copyright protection to provide income for their descendants, and that's how it was sold to the public. It was a disaster for educators, archivists, and others who need material to come into the public domain every year that they can use without paying royalties. We are now in the midst of a 20-year drought when no previously copyrighted material is coming into the public domain thanks to the Bono Extension. In 2018, some of those 20-year extensions will finally start to expire.

The main pressure for the extension came from the film industry. When old films from the 1920s started coming into the public domain and appearing on the Internet, Hollywood decided it needed to stop the flow of more recent films from becoming public domain. But the extension applies to all copyrighted material, not just films. A good summary of reasoning in support of the extension: http://www.copyrightextension.com/page01.html

The Extension was challenged by Larry Lessig at Stanford Law, but it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Here's a good summary of that decision from the American Library Association, which fought against the extension:

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/copy...edvashcroft.cfm

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Thank you, for that LINK to Apollinaiare Scherr's "Foot in Mouth" blog. It's good to see this story being taken up by more and more members of the community of ballet lovers.

Perhaps the discussion will make some ballet organizations rethink their position on the question of intellectual rights versus the benefits of being seen by a larger audience.

It was also nice to find our own member and frequent poster Paul Parrish quoted -- as well as a link to Ballet Talk.

This reminds me of a strange situation that occured about 10years ago. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a very populate tv series and had quite the rabid following. At the time, there were numerous fan web pages all over the internet. Warner Bros decided to shut down all of these websites for copyright infringement b/c they were using images from the show.

The fansites that were basically advertising the show and engaging and exciting the fans were all shut down leaving just the single (pretty bare bones) official site.

It was just a bizarre occurrence that WB certainly was within their right to do, but ended up alienating quite a few fans. Even Joss Whedon (IIRC) was supporting these fan pages. But it was a case of some studio head or corporate lawyer who is multiple levels removed from the actual fanbase making a legal decision that in the long run, does not help them at all.

In the case of youtube, the Companies should be ENCOURAGING the videos. And in some cases, they should be monitoring what kind of viewing numbers they get. It would help give some indication as to what the public is interested in.

JMTC

-goro-

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