A Message From RiffTrax

[OldSkoolRulah]

@Miss Martian

You are wrong about the Dr Who comments you made.

No Dr Who episodes are lost from within the possible period of someone having home video recording capabilities, and it was not piracy that recovered any lost episodes. They were found by random TV studios and warehouses around the world, not from anyone's personal collections.

VHS didn't exist until 1976, and that was in Japan. It didn't come to the West until 1977. All lost episodes are from the 1960s.

Dont try the "I'm an old nerd, and the kiddies wont know if I make shit up" routine. You're not the only old head here, and plus google exists, even if many of us aren't massive Dr Who fans and know that you are either woefully ill-informed or just talking garbage.

[Flib Ittygibbet]

I do worry about people sharing RiffTrax digital goods and the potential financial loss from that activity

They stopped doing blockbusters because of it, I recall. Now it’s just old films again. Only when they can have revenue assured (such as a kickstarter) do they bother with modern films these days. Shame, since it’s what they wanted to do back in the MST3K days, too, but couldn’t afford the broadcast rights to them.

[Cephus]

I do worry about people sharing RiffTrax digital goods and the potential financial loss from that activity

They stopped doing blockbusters because of it, I recall. Now it’s just old films again. Only when they can have revenue assured (such as a kickstarter) do they bother with modern films these days. Shame, since it’s what they wanted to do back in the MST3K days, too, but couldn’t afford the broadcast rights to them.

They haven't stopped entirely but they did say that the VOD films made a lot more money for them, so I don't really blame them. There's nothing the studios can do to them for releasing just-the-jokes MP3s. They're just talking. There is no conceivable copyright violation there.

[JeepBanshee]

This is just a weird back and forth troll situation. The original poster, supposedly the Rifftrax people - if they ever really were involved in starting this thread - are not interested in anything but setting off some backbiting.

Forget rights, they don't exist. There is no 'stealing' with copy right, as when you make a copy you still have one copy left.

Lastly, vote Papoon! Not insane!

[Anarchemist]

I hate this thread so I shouldn't even comment.

There is an expression that says "Do what you love and give it away, and the universe will reward you" or pay you or something like that. It is actually not bad business policy either. A lot of Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley and other artists are heavily bootlegged. It never hurts sales of their media or live shows (You probably think Elvis is dead. ..ok he is dead, but the point is the same).
The way network tv used to work is we'd get to watch everything for free and sponsors hoped we'd buy crap in the commercials. Joel at the time encouraged us to bootleg the show and spread the tapes. He got it.
If you are ANY GOOD AT ALL, people will bootleg your work. (Prince used the bootlegged Black Album as a marketing tool for other stuff. It's a game.)
I can afford to purchase maybe 2 or 3 Rifftrax per year. And I will go to a theater live thing once in a while. If it were not for this site and torrents, chances are I would just forget Rifftrax exist at all. I bet a lot of people would.
You get rid of a gathering place of fans so hardcore they are re-editing and uploading, at their own expense and risk, copies of Rifftrax just so other fans can enjoy them, you are shooting your fandom in the face.
The dumbest comment on here is the guy saying "why don't you all just admit you are thieves?" What a myopic point of view. No big picture at all, just thieves, no fans.
Places like this are signs of a healthy fandom. When places like this stop existing, fandoms--and profits--dry up.

[Miss Martian]

@Miss Martian

You are wrong about the Dr Who comments you made.

No Dr Who episodes are lost from within the possible period of someone having home video recording capabilities, and it was not piracy that recovered any lost episodes. They were found by random TV studios and warehouses around the world, not from anyone's personal collections.

VHS didn't exist until 1976, and that was in Japan. It didn't come to the West until 1977. All lost episodes are from the 1960s.

Dont try the "I'm an old nerd, and the kiddies wont know if I make shit up" routine. You're not the only old head here, and plus google exists, even if many of us aren't massive Dr Who fans and know that you are either woefully ill-informed or just talking garbage.

I wasn't talking about the recovered episodes - I was talking about the UNRECOVERED episodes - which fans made AUDIO recordings of. The unrecovered episodes have all been released as audio; many of them because fans made AUDIO tape recordings. Some of these audio recordings were even used to help remaster the audio on reently found episodes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who...oundtracks

From wikipedia "Although numerous episodes are still missing, full-length audio soundtracks for all missing episodes are held by the BBC.[22] THESE COME FROM OFF AIR RECORDINGS MADE BY FANS, often made by use of a MICROPHONE attached to a tape TAPE RECORDER placed close to the television set.[85] While the quality of these off-air recordings varies greatly, multiple fan recordings exist for every episode."

I have watched and listened to ALL the lost episodes, which used these FAN MADE PIRATE RECORDINGS often mixed with narration and released by the BBC on CD and other formats. I have also watched reconstructions which used these recordings, along with stills from the BBC, to help "reconstruct" the episode. Thank you PIRACY!!!

Also, the tone of your response was completely uncalled for. You could have just said "It's my understanding...so MAYBE you're wrong", instead of "you are either woefully ill-informed or just talking garbage." There's no need for a pissing match here. We are all fans, and this is supposed to be a COMMUNITY. And in that spirit - I will extend the hand of friendship by saying I'M SORRY I wasn't more specific to avoid confusion.  Thank you. 

[Zoomer123]

I hate this thread so I shouldn't even comment.

There is an expression that says "Do what you love and give it away, and the universe will reward you" or pay you or something like that.  It is actually not bad business policy either.  A lot of Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley and other artists are heavily bootlegged. It never hurts sales of their media or live shows (You probably think Elvis is dead.  ..ok he is dead, but the point is the same).
The way network tv used to work is we'd get to watch everything for free and sponsors hoped we'd buy crap in the commercials. Joel at the time encouraged us to bootleg the show and spread the tapes. He got it.
If you are ANY GOOD AT ALL, people will bootleg your work.  (Prince used the bootlegged Black Album as a marketing tool for other stuff.  It's a game.)
I can afford to purchase maybe 2 or 3 Rifftrax per year. And I will go to a theater live thing once in a while.  If it were not for this site and torrents, chances are I would just forget Rifftrax exist at all. I bet a lot of people would.
You get rid of a gathering place of fans so hardcore they are re-editing and uploading, at their own expense and risk, copies of Rifftrax just so other fans can enjoy them, you are shooting your fandom in the face.
The dumbest comment on here is the guy saying "why don't you all just admit you are thieves?"  What a myopic point of view.  No big picture at all, just thieves, no fans.
Places like this are signs of a healthy fandom. When places like this stop existing, fandoms--and profits--dry up.

"Myopic" lol...you're a thief. Again, it's OK, just stop pretending you have noble reasons. You either don't want to pay for it or can't. I personally use torrents for copies that are synced, as I choose not to bother with that. I do donate on their site. I have no illusions of what I am doing. It's stealing. you know it, you just hate to admit it about yourself so you try and wrap it in some noble aesthetic...you aren't Robin Hood.

Yes, the original MST notion of "circulating the tapes" was encouraged. I don't believe the Rifftrax people ever made such a statement. And no, this is not the same as a library or buying something at a yard sale. Libraries are something authors accept. and at SOME point, the copies of the materials in the library WERE purchased at least once. Same as a yard sale, ownership is transferred. 2 instances of that item do not exist. Digital goods can be replicated with ease and distributed. Yes you can say a copy is not Rifftrax (or any content provider) losing money as it wasn't a sale anyway, but that is still theft by the content owner's description and expectation...YOU do not get to define that for them.

You can't be much of a fan if all it would take is for you is not to buy some content for a while and that would make you forget they exist.

+

[Miss Martian]

And with that, yet another thread here has jumped the shark. Can no one have calm rational discussions anymore, with out it getting personal and turning into a flame war? If you have a point, state your point. There's no need for all this hostility towards each other. It's supposed to be a community. ffs. What ever happened to civility and common decency?

[BadFilms]

The reasoning behind the whole "circulate the tapes" message was because of the lack of advertising, need for word of mouth, the fact that TV episodes aired when they aired and couldn't easily be watched again, and the major factor that The Comedy Channel wasn't available on most cable providers when MST3K launched. The staff at Best Brains had to go to a bar in a nearby town to watch the premiere of the show because they didn't have The Comedy Channel locally. The only way the show was going to get the word-of-mouth to drive up viewership and requests to cable providers to get The Comedy Channel was to have videos circulating as promotion, something we don't have to worry about in this age where video is ubiquitous and available anytime you want. Back then, deep cut basic cable channels didn't have promotion for their shows outside the channel or channel guides that allowed you to see what was on; you had to physically buy a magazine or get one from your local paper to know what was going to be on for the next week.

Speaking for myself, my grandmother had The Comedy Channel and Ha! and I would only be able to watch those when I went to visit. For some reason, our cable service didn't add Comedy Central until 1999. When MST3K moved to Sci-Fi, that was my first chance to actually watch it, aside from a handful of episodes when I visited my grandmother and late-night airings of the Mystery Science Theater Hour on whatever channel that got buried on in local syndication.

Tape trading at that time was a good way for people to see the vast majority of episodes they'd miss due to the limitations of scheduling and the early cable systems of the 80s having inconsistent selections, as well as being marketing for the show. The reason they approved of it was because they were paid by the network to make the show and the network was paid by the advertisers, based on assumed viewership. The more viewers, the more likely it would stay on the air.

Obviously, none of them would approve of "circulating the tapes" today, because they're trying to sell the "tapes" directly to you, instead of being paid by a network that could shut them down at a moment's notice if viewership drops or people lose interest. They make what they want and market it directly to you with preview videos. They make licensing deals with free content providers like Tubi and Pluto, paid services like Amazon Prime, and promote themselves through Twitch to spread the word about their content in the same way tape trading would have 30 years ago.

[slinkybro30]

And with that, yet another thread here has jumped the shark. Can no one have calm rational discussions anymore, with out it getting personal and turning into a flame war? If you have a point, state your point. There's no need for all this hostility towards each other. It's supposed to be a community. ffs. What ever happened to civility and common decency?

welcome to the internet where discussion becomes an argument over night