- cross-posted to:
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- doctorwho
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- doctorwho
cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/4478496
Veteran film collector John Franklin believes the answer is for the BBC to announce an immediate general amnesty on missing film footage.
This would reassure British amateur collectors that their private archives will not be confiscated if they come forward and that they will be safe from prosecution for having stored stolen BBC property, something several fear.
“Some of these collectors are terrified,” said Franklin, who knows the location of the two missing Doctor Who episodes, along with several other newly discovered TV treasures, including an episode of the The Basil Brush Show, the second to be unearthed this autumn. “We now need to catalogue and save the significant television shows that are out there. If we are not careful they will eventually be dumped again in house clearances, because a lot of the owners of these important collections are now in their 80s and are very wary,” he added.
Discarded TV film was secretly salvaged from bins and skips by staff and contractors who worked at the BBC between 1967 and 1978, when the corporation had a policy of throwing out old reels. And Hartnell’s Doctor Who episodes were far from the only ones to go. Many popular shows were lost and other Doctor Who adventures starring Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee were either jettisoned or erased. A missing early episode of the long-running sitcom Sykes, starring Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques, has also been rediscovered in private hands in the last few weeks.
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The BBC said it was ready to talk to anyone with lost episodes. “We welcome members of the public contacting us regarding programmes they believe are lost archive recordings, and are happy to work with them to restore lost or missing programmes to the BBC archives,” it said.
Whether this will be enough to prompt nervous collectors to come forward is doubtful. While collectors are in no real danger, the infamous arrest of comedian Bob Monkhouse in 1978 has not been forgotten, Franklin suspects: “Monkhouse was a private collector and was accused of pirating videos. He even had some of his archive seized. Sadly people still believe they could have their films confiscated.”
The Swedish and Danish don’t give a flying fuck about the bbc and would gladly digitize the content and watch England fume.
Than where are the people lining up to do it…?
Usually you’d need to ask for something like that given that the owners aren’t known … That’s the whole point.
Right, so the owners aren’t known, they don’t want to present themselves, hence why a digitizer would have to present themselves, or lining up.
Where is this happening to screw over the BBC? Maybe because there is potential legal ramifications….? It’s so weird that no one has done this yet if it’s not illegal and people would love to screw someone over… why isn’t it being done…
Right because it’s likely illegal, great we figured that out! Do you even know what you’re talking about here? Or did you just see a cheap chance to knock the BBC that falls apart when questioned with the slightest rebuttal?
Nope, giving away the digitizer opens then to vexatious litigation that wont do anything but will cost them. What they need is an organization to come forward and offer to arrange the service without actually handling anything from either party.
There are, just not in Sweden or Denmark.
No, it is illegal… In England. It isn’t however illegal to capture television signal and record it in some countries. The argument would be there isn’t particularly a way for the bbc to prove it wasn’t a very very good televised capture given they have nothing to compare it to.
Even that company would be subject to investigation, it just makes another hurdle, but it doesn’t suddenly make both sides anonymous.
I didn’t say it would. And honestly if that company is setup in the right country (China) England would be hard pressed to even bring claim because it isn’t illegal in either other country.