This movie is going to get released - Song of the South (1946) Discussion

[–] sticksstoneswwiv 9 years ago

it already is released, you can easily buy vhs copies secondhand.

the rights expiring doesn't matter as disney are holding the master reels and without them remastering is not possible. this means there will only be a vhs level (or the laserdisc copy) released. well you can already buy that as a pirate on markets.

besides which, the rights to the movie won't be so clean cut. these things never are, it probably was extended with the re-release in the 1970s or whenever.

personally I'd like disney to allow a specialist imprint like criterion to remaster it and release it. gives the fans a nice clean bluray copy and keeps disney relatively free from any silly press

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[–] rnmboon 9 years ago

According to www.songofthesouth.net the rights will expire in 2041. So "a few more years" means 26 years. I myself will hopefully be retired by then. :)

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[–] chicago85 8 years ago

I got a VHS copy many years ago. Disney was selling official copies of the Song of the South in England. I found a woman was buying copies and then converting them from the PAL format to the VHS format. She said as long as you bought an official copy, you were legally allowed to make a copy for your personal use.

Later she asked to buy it back at a high price saying she had run through all her copies due to high demand.

Don't let anyone tell you there is not censorship in the United States, official or through political pressure. I got a copy of Porgy & Bess with Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. It was on VHS from a 16 millimeter copy. You can see Porgy & Bess live on stage but not this movie. In 1993 a member of the Gershwin estate said they hunted down any copies and destroyed them. They did not like the Hollywood version.

I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else

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[–] BG43214 (44) 5 years ago

what a shame......I esp. disliked the Gershwin estate destroying "Porgy & Bess'....so they didn't like it" tough! they were still getting their damn royalties from it, right?

as for SOTS, I am so infuriated at this stupidity over racism........ok so it was racist; at the time, no one thought of it the way we do now........NO work of art should be censored/destroyed because of current 'thinking'......(using the word lightly!!)

If someone's offended by it, so be it..DON'T SEE IT..no one is twisting your damn arm to watch this movie............

I for one would like to see it.......again, if you are offended by what you hear about it, don't see it, but let others, IN A SUPPOSEDLY FREE DEMOCRACY......see it!!!!!

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[–] stevenackerman69 8 years ago

How would they lose the rights? Knowing Disney, they would renew it anyway.

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[–] laurence01 8 years ago

It can not be renewed, there is a legal limit on copyright.

Let Zygons Be Zygons.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Disney is part of the reason why the copyright laws keep getting changed to extend further and further.

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[–] PaladinNJ (20310) 5 years ago

Ironically Disney would have to show they are actively utilizing the movie to extend the copyright again. Amusement rides and toys based on the original story don't count. The only way Disney could extend the copyright is to rerelease the movie to the public.

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[–] PaladinNJ (20310) 3 years ago

[deleted]

[–] liscarkat (16515) 6 years ago

I have a VHS of it that I taped from a Japanese-release laser disk about twenty years ago. It's a nice movie for kids, about a wise, kind old man who befriends two kids and tells them stories. James Baskett was brilliant in the role; it's a shame that a lot of fools have made his performance unavailable to the general public.

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[–] TMC-4 (19411) 5 years ago

http://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/will-disney-finally-bring-song-of-the-south-out-of-their-vaults-.php