does anyone know where I can get copies of the old Blue Leopard Media DVDs??? Does anyone have them who may be willing to part with them? Very curious about this, looking forward to a response

I really want to get those too. I was out of work when he was making them and closed down just when I got back on my feet. I loved his style.

I've seen them on download sites that seem very dubious; was hoping someone had copies/knew where they could be downloaded.

I realize this is not the most realistic of ideas, but it would be great to have a single download store where videos from producers that are no longer in business could be purchased with at least some of the money going to said producers (of course).

Mentioned this exact same thing a year ago. ANGRILY shot down by many people who pointed out that copyright is absolute, even if the person has been gone from the community and will never return (Blue Leopard) or is actually deceased and obviously can't grant copyright to another person (The Pie-Detector Test guy). Too bad, right?

I have converted some vintage clips from Paul's House Of Pies and NY Pies... They're in my main DL Store, and all the proceeds go to charities chosen by the original producers. Unfortunately, I can't do the same with Blue Leopard or other clips, because there's no way to contact them now. Catch 22, then.

That Elvira spoof is amazing.

I found some edited trailers for Blue Leopard vids in my archives, so for what it's worth I uploaded them to my smesstube library.

Slapstick Impossible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69IvoXl9IGc&feature=youtu.be

Esmerelda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-tuKW7QM8s&feature=youtu.be

Diamond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlVKrz9BjQU&feature=youtu.be

not that its any consolation but copyrights are not absolute, they DO expire post mortem, i just dont remember if its 50 or 75 years....

I'll stop back in 50 years to see the vids (sets alarm clock).......

Norman

For most of the media we're talking about (i.e., created and published after 1989), it'll remain in copyright for 70 years after the death of the author. If it's a work of corporate authorship (which I guess might apply, if a producer set up their company an LLC), copyright extends to 95 years after publication -- potentially a shorter term, assuming the majority producers are youngish horndogs, but still no help to any of us, unless we're planning on raising our grandkids to be wammers too.

Rich, if you keeled over dead tomorrow -- or, more to the point, if you remained alive (yay!) but left the wam community for good -- would you want Anglefan or Scumbag Chris to round up your old videos and put them into a new download store, with the profits going to ... wherever they felt like?

(The real lesson -- and Bill Shipton was the poster child for this -- is that if you have a library of wam videos and you care what happens to them after you die, do some estate planning NOW. If you don't have relatives who are open to managing your fetish legacy, ask Messmaster or someone else in the WAM community to take things over if you bite it, and set up the mechanism for that now.)

The Elvira spoof IS amazing, as are all of his videos. I never had a chance to see Slapstick Impossible, so that's what I was hoping to somehow find. Wish there was someone in the community who owned a copy who wanted to sell, I'd be more than happy to pay fair price plus shipping and whatnot. A shame BLM left the scene, his stuff was one of a kind.

Selfishly... When I'm dead, I don't really care WHAT happens to my stuff. It won't affect me one iota.
However, at this precise moment people could still buy my stuff even after I'm gone. (Morbid I know.) The legalities would mainly boil down to who gets the revenue coming in from the stores... Although they WOULD also have access to footage that has been shot but not released yet, so that's something.

The problem when people leave the community is access. BL guy could be very much alive... Or dead... But it doesn't matter if no one can reach him.

With large industries, a lot of people simply skirt copyright online. It explains how you can find the digital music files for many "out-of-print" albums that are no longer sold new (due to legal disputes, etc)... Or buy a grey-market DVD of "Song Of The South" (which Disney will never officially release due to, ya know... Huge swaths of racism.) Fortunately, we as a community are much closer-knit so there's very little "WAM piracy" beyond the occasional YouTube troll. But it also means that when a producer leaves/quits, his stuff goes with him.

The irony, of course, is that BlueLeopard quit the community out of frustration that his stuff was NOT selling... Especially considering the substantial amount of work he put into each release.

Can't believe his stuff didn't sell; along with Slapstickstudff stuff, BLM was the kind of WAM that really appealed to me, meaning it was an actual situation, set up, that led to the slapstick, not just a chair and flying pastry ( not that I don't like that as well!). It now seems this may have to go down as a Great Lost Clip, mush like the surprise Sesame Street clip, but this is more frustrating as I COULD have acquired this clip and did not. The Surprise clip just may be lost to history! Anyone out there with access to Slapstick Impossible? Again, I'll happily pay for it!

Maybe this video trailer sank the site...

http://youtu.be/t1jUgV1YjXU

Yeah, I'm one of those who did not shoot you down.

We should preserve these vids in the event that the producer has moved on. Of course, this should be done properly.

If the producer has moved on (but is still alive), then they should be contacted and some of the profits remitted to them. The amount should be less than an active account obviously. If they are not interested, then the profits could be channeled back to the WAM community. I'm not exactly sure how, but as long as no one person benefits from it, then it's probably easier/fairer on everyone.

If the producer has left us permanently, then the same policy as above can be applied to the estate of the producer (assuming they can be contacted).

The thing is, it wouldn't be that hard to implement it. The video stores at UMD and Vidown can add a clause that says, in the event the materials are abandoned, then the WAM community reserves the right to continue republishing it, subject to those terms above. However, the producer reserves the right to explicitly countermand republishing (which would be useful if the producer has good reasons for not circulating the videos).

So in this situation, when Rich moves on, he (or his heirs) gets a small check for as long as UMD floats his stuff, and for producers who closed their shops for other reasons (don't want to circulate WAM videos because of personal reasons) that can be accommodated as well via the explicit countermand clause.

And as for the copyright thing, legal concerns are only a concern when someone takes action, and that obviously only applies to people who have an active vested interest (e.g. active producers running a business). If a producer has left permanently, and his estate couldn't care less, do you think anyone is going to care?

Basically every word of this is wrong in terms of copyright law. Copyright includes the artist's right to withhold a work from distribution if the artist chooses to. Entitlement on the part of potential consumers does not change that. And you guys know that if producers quit, it's sometimes not out of indifference but because they got religion or an uptight girlfriend or some other glitch that caused them to not want their wam past floating around in public. (This happened with one producer last week!) The only legitimate way to bring out-of-print content back from the dead is to do what Rich did in the cases he brought up above: contact the producers and untangle the rights issues in a way that secures their consent. And if the answer is no, it's no. And I assume Messmaster and Soundguy are sensible enough to shoot down any download store that openly assembled old clips without the copyright holder's consent, anyway.

That said, if something is an orphan work or if the rightsholders are known to be eccentric or recalcitrant, I do support the quiet, not-for-profit circulation of that work among aficionados. (One film critic likened this to ancient monks copying scrolls.) But once you add an element of commerce (i.e., a download store) it not only violates the law but crosses an ethical line, I think, as frustrating as that may be.

And jaywalking is illegal, but nobody cares. I think you are missing the point here, the legal considerations are only of a concern when there is someone who cares. If there is nobody who is "going to sue" so to speak, then there is no problem at the practical level. Yes, it would be technically illegal, which again goes back to my point... who cares?

And you also missed the point of my entire argument - if the community has taken an active effort to locate the original copyright holder or his estate, and we still cannot find that entity (which is not the same as that person not giving consent), then it's basically "abandoned".

Well it's been a week, I assume no one has a lead on where these can be procured. No one owns/ has a copy I can purchase?

Although I sure would want to know that my hard work & sacrifice would make money for me while I'm alive, or only for those whom I'd want after I'm dead (of course, I'm caring about this only while I'm still alive),
and I say this as someone who would not want someone taking credit for my 1 or 2 math theorems I've proved in my life,
I would think the bigger fear - and this goes with all copyright holders, big or small - is the relentless passing of time & the notion of these rare moments in human history - brief glorious moments of time in a Golden Era of freedom & means for the exploration of human sexuality - being lost to all history
if somebody (even a creep) doesn't maintain them, keep them copied, etc.