by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

I was stuck in the DVD/CD department for a little while tonight. So, like I usually do when in that situation, I wandered around and looked at some of the music and video that was on the shelves. Did you know that Forbidden Planet (circa 1957) can be had on DVD now? And at my store it is a bargain at $19.95. Now, this is for a movie which has been relegated to early morning hours on the obscure cable channels. All of the stars are dead (I think). In fact, there is nobody left, in main, to pay royalties to except the greedy bastards who purchased the rights to the old flick and are now selling DVDs, which take a couple cents to produce, for almost $20. It's for damn sure that the people who made this film are not getting any of the proceeds from sales of the DVD.

It turns out that there are a lot of old films which have been transferred to DVD and are being sold for $20 a pop. In effect there are some suits out there who are profiteering in the worse way. Now, if they were selling these old movies for, say, the cost of a paperback book, that I could live with...as long as some of the proceeds from those sales went to help preserve these and other old films. Another part of the proceeds should go to a fund to pay royalties, even if they are only a couple dollars a month, to any surviving members of the casts and crews of those films. Reward those who made the art, not those who have hijacked it.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. ©El Zorro Viejo 2002-2005