Fan Network - Why have you forsaken me?

[tesmusic]

As for the music of Bernstein, information can be found here: http://www.leonardbernstein.com/lic.htm

[tesmusic]

As for a refund from DCI, not likely. There would have to be wording when you sign up for the site and its usage that states that you have access to any and all shows. I am sure DCI is smart enough to not guarantee anything that is on the website in terms of content. If they did, you can fight for a refund. I don't have the Fan Network so I can't say for sure what the wording is, but those guarantees would have to be there.

[Lincoln]

That said, I'm not pleased that DCI did not even have the common courtesy to email us subscribers simultaneously as they were deleting a substantial portion of their product offerings.

I agree with you.

[MikeN]

It seems to me that there is a push on inside DCI to eliminate the cost of producing discs in favor of posting to FN. "Discs are for the collectors", I remember hearing.

If DCI is deleting stuff off of the FN, everyone who wants to see a legacy show will need to be a collector.

Actually, I see it the opposite - it's why we're still being sold physical CD's ("if we went digital, nobody would buy the CD's," I was told by DCI) and there have never been video bundles.

If they're taking away almost half of the content, can we have a discount on the price?

Mike

[N.E. Brigand]

I would imagine that subscribers would legally have the right to a complete and full refund. Its not the subscribers' fault that the seller could not deliver the services promised.

Well, it depends on what exactly the Fan Network contract says. Who reads all that fine print when signing up? I would guess that it specifies that content will change from time to time.

That said, a change this large perhaps exceeds what the contract could reasonably be said to cover. It would seem fair to issue partial refunds based on the percentage of content removed and the number of days remaining on a subscriber's contract.

So there are about 150 days left on Fan Network contracts, and 150/365 = 41%. Multiple that by the percentage of missing shows. It seems 72 performances were removed, out of a total of 471 "Finalist" performances (including 1974 and 1981) that were previously available to general subscribers. Plus those subscribers have access to at least another 550 non-Finalist performances (from 2005-2013). Even if you count those other shows as worth only half as much each as the Finalist shows, that means the lost material totals 72/746 = 10%.

Therefore subscribers should receive a 4% discount on the on-demand portion of their purchase. Subscriptions that included live webcast costs $70 last summer, meaning subscribers would each be due something less than $2.80 in refunds.

And all that calculation would have to wait until DCI had fully determined that these shows were permanently removed from their offerings, or whether they could yet be restored before this year's subscriptions run out.

[Lincoln]

As for a refund from DCI, not likely. There would have to be wording when you sign up for the site and its usage that states that you have access to any and all shows. I am sure DCI is smart enough to not guarantee anything that is on the website in terms of content. If they did, you can fight for a refund. I don't have the Fan Network so I can't say for sure what the wording is, but those guarantees would have to be there.

One thing for sure, when it comes time to sign up for Fan Network for 2015, how much is available to view will affect my decision.

[Kamarag]

I would imagine that subscribers would legally have the right to a complete and full refund. Its not the subscribers fault that the seller could not deliver the services promised.

You might want to actually read the "terms and conditions" that are published right there on the Fan Network page. DCI doesn't owe you, me, or anyone one fat dime.

[leed17]

I may be wrong, but it looks like you can still purchase those removed shows as video and audio downloads. I was able to add BD86 and SCV89 to my cart for purchase ( didn't actually follow thru and purchase since I already own them on the legacy collection, but I wanted to test it....). So, if this is indeed the way it is, then it's just the streaming/on demand portion of the fan network that is the issue with these shows.

And yes, I agree that we all should have received some kind of notification as subscribers.

[Lincoln]

That 84 Garfield was spared is also odd.

Didn't Don Angelica know Leonard Bernstein personally or something like that?

Edited December 19, 2014 by Lincoln

[N.E. Brigand]

Are you referring to the stories that Disney used, or the work they produced?

The stories they used. Much of Disney's fortune is derived from the retelling older stories that had fallen out of copyright. If Disney could do so, I'm sure they would push to get the law changed again to prevent their works from ever moving to the public domain. The Constitution explicitly prohibits that, by specifying that Congress may protect copyright only for "limited times". In 1790 that meant 28 years from the date of creation; since 1998, it means 70 years after an author's death or, for corporate works, 95 years after publication. I would love to see some regression toward the earlier number.