Since I don’t have cable TV in my apartment, I’ve been watching some old Saturday Night Live on Netflix on my computer. After watching a few episodes from last season, I noticed that the musical performances were left out of the episodes. I searched the internet to see if there was an explanation for this, but I found nothing. I’m sure that there is a legal reason, quite possibly pertaining to copyright law that explains why Netflix would leave this aspect of the show out. The issue raises some interesting questions about who owns the rights to the musical performance. A SNL episode is definitely a creative work, that would be copyrighted by NBC as a work for hire, which Netflix has to secure the rights to in order to stream it on their website. Maybe the reasons that Netflix would not include the performance in their streaming of the episodes is either A) NBC doesn’t own the rights to the performance, and possibly the record label or the artist does, or B) NBC charges a higher licensing fee to include the musical performance for some reason, which Netflix doesn’t view as worth the cost. The situation seems unclear because there is a musical performance of a copyrighted work within a television show that is also copyrighted. I will keep looking for the answer to this question, but it does raise some interesting questions. Is the artist contributing their performance to the episode, and if not who owns the rights to the performance?
Saturday Night Live Musical Performances Missing From Netflix
March 23rd, 2010 by ColinAnderson Leave a reply »
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I think that it is probably a combination of your two hypotheses. The songwriter/publishing company/record label would own the rights to the song and therefore would also own the rights to the performance. I’m not sure if the performance would be a work for hire or if SNL licenses the performance as an independent contract. Therefore, I am guessing that Netflix would need a separate license for the performance, apart from their license from NBC, which they may feel is not worth it.
I would have thought that all the rights would belong to NBC because, even though the music artist is responsible for the creation/performance of the song(s), it is a part of a greater whole written, produced, and aired by NBC. What’s weird about the Netflix thing is that you can go to the SNL website and watch the entire episode, musical performance included. So your probably correct that NBC doesn’t own the copyright and Netflix didn’t think it worth acquiring a license for from the record label.
Agreed. I think that since a musical performance is an artistic expression, obviously copyrightable, that the artist and its record label must own the copyright to the song, have licensed the song and the performance to NBC, and, lastly, Netflix would have to purchase a license from NBC and possible the record company. The licensing fees must be too expensive for Netflix to deem worthy of providing access to their customers. Also, Netflix is probably aware that NBC allows viewers to watch SNL episodes in its entirety on NBC’s website and figures that if its customers really wanted to watch the performances, they would do so for free on the website. However, in order to keep customers happy, Netflix should seek out licensing fees for other shows like SNL. For example, what about the highly popular series Glee?! This show highlights numerous of the world’s most popular songs that have all required its network to obtain lincensing fees. Without the performances of these songs in each episode, the series would simply not be the same! Just some food for thought.
good morning, I like all your articles, keep them coming.
Its not just musical performances, there is a ton of great content missing. For instance one of my favorite skits of all time from season 10, episode 17 called The Houses of Shame is missing. if you look at the run time of the episodes some are under 30min and have been cut to Sh*t. Total bummer.
I am not one to complain but their sketch selection on their streaming episodes is beyond bizarre…
No Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood, No Buckwheat, no Roxbury guys on the Jim Carrey episode, no “gay Dracula” on the Travolta episode in season 20…sometimes not even the guest host is seen…but every Weekend Update is included…I can understand why the musical guests are cut but come on…the skits they do leave are strange choices most of the time…
I noticed they left out goat boy in at least one episode
so how do you feel about the netflix price increase for their dvd and streaming service? personally we dont really care that much because if you think about it, the more you pay the more titles they can purchase for viewers and in the long run members will be happy once again. but maybe im wrong?
whatever. it’s lame
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