Oddity Archive: Episode 230 - FBI Film Raids & Betamax Blues
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- Ah, the good, old days. Back when owning a 16mm film or recording something off the TV could get you a visit from the Feds. Good times…
NOTE: Nothing in this video qualifies as legal advice. If you need help, seek out a lawyer, not some lunatic on the internet that sits behind a cardboard box.
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What the hell is with bleeping Disney?
Disney has been known to copyright strike videos just for mentioning their name or showing pictures of a well famous mouse.
Simple. It's the company that shalln't be named, lest a myriad of mouse-like demons are unleashed.
Ben likes memes. (Probably not so much an issue these days, but the meme remains thanks to the shenanigans circumventing copyright strikes of Oddity Archives’ past.)
I mean that's why I always refer to them solely as "The Mouse". It not only sounds more intimidating but avoids mentioning them by name.
He missed one - 19:46
Private ownership of films?! The horror! Proof that you could always buy politicians and feds to prosecute 'crimes'
This is really one of the best OA episodes. Ben is a great researcher and really should be a professor of film history. There's like a "Great Courses" series that could come out of this, the Prehistoric Television episode, Dumont Network, Scanimate... Seriously, class sections would fill up faster than you can say Walt D***** -- er, Max Headroom.
I wonder how much law enforcement resources were wasted on catching movie pirates, that could've gone towards more serious things like ending gang and mafia violence. Reminds me of what the government does when they catch people growing the forbidden plant.
but what could possibly be more important than big Hollywood potentially losing a buck or two?
@@niklass1641 Big pharma, potentially losing a buck or two from illegal drug trade?
Bootleg film budgets do end up in organized crime so, there is some validity to it being illegal. That's why if you just record it and not sell it you're clear.
What kind of people do you think are typically involved in bootlegging and unauthorized sale of films? That's the kind of thing an organized crime network does. When we're talking excessive searches and seizures, it's usually under the pretense of *selling* and distributing contraband not possession.
Great episode, I love these history lessons! But, while I know this was not meant to be definitive, I think you missed a pretty significant part of the Betamax Case, which was that one defender of home recording was one Fred Rogers. Yes, as in Mister. Reading about that was actually how I first heard about the Betamax Case.
It was in the script, but I dropped it because it seemed like a stray bit of trivia amongst the short, straightforward narrative I had going.
That, and I couldn't find any video footage.
It would seem Hollywood's war on home viewer ownership of physical media has been a century-long campaign with a 40 or so year detente (the VHS / DVD / BR era) that is now drawing to a close.
Thanks, streaming services!
...and pirate bay for those who refuse to stream.
I will never not buy a physical copy of a film that I actually want to have access to in the future. It's a lot harder to take back your discs than it is to remove a film from a streaming service.
Probably the best part of streaming is that once something goes OOP you can no longer watch it. Sarcasm:enabled
Anything that harms Hollywood can't be bad. They completely deserve any financial harm that goes their way
Absolutely fascinating! I wasn't aware of this aspect of Hollywood history.
Ben! why didn't you tell me you were working on an episode about this topic, I could have gotten you some choice interviews with two film collector friends of mine who endured crackdowns or know someone who did.
Didn't know you knew anybody that had been through it.
I did have an indirect line on Bob Frischmann, but since I had the complete story, I didn't want to bother him--that would've been awkward.
Oh boy, don't get me started on how I feel about Copyright, Private and Personal Ownership, Corporations, and The Government.
Copyright is a joke, just look at Disney and their characters.
My day is always brightened whenever Ben uploads a new video. This should be a very good one.
In Britain the actor/comedian Bob Monkhouse was famous for his film collection; there is some information on it on his Wikipedia entry. He had an early video recorder and used to tape things off television from the 1960s. He taped quite a few rare things that were thought lost. Also the BBC used to wipe tapes to use again and people involved in the programmes used to take their own copies - so they still exist.
* obligatory mention of Doctor Who *
I think it was pretty common for most studios and stations back in the day to re-use their tapes. I know back in the 70's and 80's the local pro wrestling promotions would re-use their tapes all the time, so unless you recorded the shows with a VCR (which was rare at the time), those shows are lost. Nobody thought that anybody would want to see those shows again 20-40 years later.
My father-in-law got his 16mm film collection impounded by the FBI. He e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y got them all back.
In the UK, there was a TV Presenter/Comedian called Bob Monkhouse. He was an avid collector of silent movies and also recorded pretty much everything broadcast on TV off air. He lent the son of a friend a film and somehow the Police found out and he was arrested for illegally distributing movies. He was found not guilty, but unfortunately his collection was seized and most of it was destroyed. However when he died in 2003, his collection was donated to the British Film Institute where it remains.
Nowadays, you can torrent pretty much anything, and most of the time nothing happens
The Late Movie slide at 18:40 came from WREG CBS 3 in Memphis, who had a massive movie library in the 70's and 80's, and was where I first my first VCR to use. 😀
"Hello, Mrs. Anderson, is Timmy there? We'd like to talk to him because he has an illegal 16mm copy of Friday The 13th."
"No, he's at school."
This is one of those things of the past that is so hard to comprehend these days, like how pinball was illegal in the 1950s. The legality of ordinary people recording things off TV for posterity has been a given for so long it's hard to believe it ever had to BE made legal. BetaMax, VHS, DVRs, they have been so important for the last 50 years. Much of UA-cam practically wouldn't exist if you couldn't show commercials, TV shows, or movies. Streaming probably wouldn't exist either without hefty fines. It's mindboggling.
Oh man, talk about piracy. My parents bought one of the early VHS players when my dad was stationed in Okinawa in the late 70s and we had quite a few bootleg copies of films, including some by Disney that wouldn't get an official VHS release until the early 90s like Snow White. Because of this, I still to this very day have a tendency to pirate films and TV shows off the internet that either don't have any official release on home media (streaming doesn't count) or if it does it's incomplete or otherwise not ideal. For those not paying attention, the copyright holders have more or less given up trying to stop online filesharing. The "six strikes" scheme they had going with various ISPs expired without a replacement and the current FBI warning on legally obtained material (which I do spend money on frequently) no longer explicitly mentions the internet. It took several decades but it seems they finally made peace with having lost the war. That may have to do with the abundance of streaming options making filesharing irrelevant to most people, but there are signs that people think there are TOO MANY options to pay for them all so the pendulum may yet swing back the other way. Time will tell.
🎶Yar har, fiddle-de-dee...
Wow I still can't wrap my head around to the fact of how they do that without newer technology today.
Great video topic , a lot of interesting info that I didn’t know about. Soon true hardcore Bootleg collectors back then.
One last thing why did you bleep out the word Disney if you’re telling a story about what actually happened and Disney’s name just happen to be in it you’re not gonna get in trouble
I’d say long running joke at oddity archive. Spoofing the ultimate evil corporation. And I love the black bars whenever D*****y’s name appears on the video.
I love when Ben covers stuff that he's clearly passionate about. It definitely shows through in the final product, and how comprehensive it is. He also has a real knack for filtering out the jejune crap from research materials, and as a result, strikes a great balance between educational and entertaining subject matter.
Good old government overreach!
Love it when you cover the scary and the scandalous. Thanks Ben 👍
Damn, Roddy...that's cold.
12:47 Finally another St. Louis clip and once again, I can't recognize this guy. To be fair, this was a couple of years before I was born.
It's not him, but it looks kind of like Bob Richards, who was a popular weatherperson on KSD (now KSDK) in the 80's. Bob Richards committed suicide in 1993 or '94 by crashing his plane when an extramarital affair became public.
You remind me of Wilson from home improvement
Maybe you should do an interview with Frischmann, that's if you can find him, and if he's still alive.
As of my making the video, Bob Frischmann is alive and well. I think he's long moved on from that ordeal.
Anyone else ever wondered if technology connections and oddity archive are the same guy 🤔
I can guarantee you 1,000,000% we are not.
@@OddityArchive well that's another mystery solved 🙂
OA is OLDER than Technology Connections. Ben is older in age than him.
I be lovin dis channel, yo. No cap. 🤣
Is Lifebuoy soap still around? Yes, it is, says Wikipedia...
Can't believe you didn't mention Jack Valenti's comparison of the VCR to the Boston Strangler.
14:34 It was also in 1977 when the FBI tried to bust Waylon Jennings for cocaine possession by following a package of coke to a studio where he was recording harmony on a Hank Jr. song. The FBI didn't have a warrant then either (not for the studio anyway), and Jennings' drummer and good friend Richie Albright managed to sneak the package away and literally flush the coke down the toilet.
In other words: FBI Open Up. (2:39, 6:28, 12:42, 16:13)
You can’t say Disney on UA-cam anymore?
Lillian Gish was an absolute Angel :) Inside and out. Epic woman the Earth was blessed to have for almost 100 years :)
What's this with "blipping out" the Disney name? Are the Disney studios that timid, they don't want their name mentioned? Not surprising really, considering the *utter crap* Disney produced, and still produces!
Hey, they made Andi Mack, one of the best TV shows of all time; that alone redeems them in my eyes.
As for the Frischmann case, and why him, there's probably no romantic or epic reason. Roughly 20% of people suck at what they do. No matter what the job, about 1/5 of people in it are either completely incompetent and just haven't screwed up enough yet to get fired, or have gotten lazy and indifferent, doing just barely enough to earn their keep. If you're a concession stand server or landscaper you're unlikely to screw up enough to make the evening news. If you're an airline pilot, or even a cop, you might actually ruin things for other people.
FWIW, prior to the widespread adoption of Bluray, owning a print of a film was the closest you could get to the quality of theatrical exhibition. Over the years film collectors would get their hands on prints through a variety of way, mostly through gray market channels. Prints sent off for destruction would sometimes land in the right hands and be sold to collectors. I was aware of some folks that knew staff at a lab a certain studio would use, and sometimes a reduction print could be arranged when the studio would send out a print to be cleaned.
Digital isn't nearly as much fun :)
Your work on these videos is masterful - why you haven't totally blown up on here is beyond me. I'll definitely keep plugging your videos to people lmao
Ronald Reagan had a film collection and a screening room at the time, as former actor and governor. Maybe not as extensive as MacDowell or Hefner. Anyone know whether he ever come close to getting raided?
Man, if I had lived in the states during the 70s and 80s, I would have been in big, big trouble with the feds 😂
My videotape collection was... well, let's just say it's more than 9 tapes 😂
Oh great! Now I have former Judge pictures in my head to the tune of "Without Us" Sha lalala
6:44 Rumor has it that, in the same manner as Milton Berle and Forrest Tucker, he was quite gifted.
So, he had a long film reel, huh?
Nothing beats a Shitpickle cameo.😆
Roddy McDowall? You mean "Huw Morgan" from _How Green Was My Valley_ ?
It's funny you mention Ben-Hur. In the 1st season of The Beverly Hillbillies it was a running joke that silent films were all the rage back in Bugtussle where they were from. They were featuring the silent version of Ben-Hur with Cousin Pearl playing pi-ann-ee!
FBI: The fruit juice or the record company???
Is it weird that my takeaway from this is "Oh! I need to watch Fright Night."
Ill go get my gavel and the popcorn. Absolutely fasinating at film collectors. Some of the movies we enjoy now may have been lost withput these people.
14:50 lol
Thank you, Ben, for censoring that vile, obscene filth. To think that those poor agents have to regularly see such horrors in their raids.
Always love your informative videos!!
FBI OPEN UP!
Nice Legal Eagle reference
Yes! New Archive!!
"Simultaneous synchronicity" (3:54), YEAH!