The Search for FVI/INI

[fanliorel]

Holy crud, my head is spinning, but I read the whole thing. Very interesting. I've always enjoyed research papers, but I'm sure glad I didn't have to do this one - way too much confusing information to sift through, especially with the merry-go-round of companies involved, and the illegalities slipping through. Keep it up though, interesting to hear what led to some of our favorite episodes.

[vanhagar3000]

FVI/INI has always seemed really shady to me. By the looks of their later "output," they'd take movies they thought the copyright had expired (which doesn't make any sense, as most of their titles were relatively new)... change the beginning & end credits and title... and voila! They claimed to own a totally different movie. This is bogus, because if copyright laws allowed such silly stunts... anyone of us could take a movie, change it a little bit, and then re-copyright and claim ownership.
That's not necessarily true. Let's say you take something PD, like The Mad Monster, add a scene in the middle with a fake Petro going wild on some guy, and you could copyright the whole thing. You wouldn't OWN the PD footage, but the editing together would still be technically seen as one. Or if you put a logo in the corner of the screen, like on TV, would not be PD.

Of course, if you make changes to a movie/do a new transfer... you can probably copyright it as a derivative work or whatnot. Hell, that's what BBI was doing with MST3k in the first place. So if you notice in FVI's copyrights, they only claim to own the added material.

There were a few titles in question they actually had the rights to (City Limits, Ator the Invincible and Extra-Terrestrial Visitors/The Unearthling), and two of those are subsequently the only FVI titles we’ve seen released by Rhino so far. But, if they owned these movies legit, why bother changing them for TV distribution? I don’t know what film FVI culled the CAVE DWELLERS opening footage from, but I know they took a scene from THE GALAXY INVADER (now owned by Wade Williams) for the opening scene of POD PEOPLE.
It's possible with those, they just wanted to give them "better" titles. Pod People is stupid, but better than the Unearthling. That is a fairly retarded name. It's possible they couldn't use the Ator name (could be trademarked) in the titles, so had to change the name.

Media Blasters licensed several (original) FVI titles to DVD, including THE GRIM REAPER, DAY OF THE ANIMALS and GRIZZLY. Not sure who they got them from though and if it has anything to do with the shady later FVI/INI. Wikipedia says “Today, many of the films produced and released through Film Ventures International are now distributed through small-scale video and DVD companies including Anchor Bay Entertainment.[13]” I haven’t seen any evidence to back this up.

Artisan is part of Lions Gate, and they might own it if FVI/Artists Releasing Corporation licensed it to Vestron video outright in the ‘80s. Jet/Jef Films is a unlegit operation (I have their DVD of STARCRASH, ported from the French DVD).

So when was FVI changed to INI?
I don't think it was ever changed. It was absorbed, but then the name was reactivated for TV and home video distribution, and apparently a couple more theatrical releases.

vanhagar3000 said:

Another interesting note, is the Elvis film Charro! is copyright for “FVI” treatment. With it publication and registration happening in December of that year. This again is for a videocassette. They also copyrighted a version of Gunslinger with the “FVI treatment” for a videocassette. This is unlikely to be the version that showed up on MST.

Yeah, I found another such copyright for SWAMP THING and a few other movies. These guys were shady for sure.



While an interesting theory, I don't think that's likely... how would they know how long to run the camera for?
You could hold the same frame of the empty theater seats around the opening credits. Which is probably why they weren't in the theater, because they didn't know how long they'd have to be in there.

The "coming in to the theater late" gag doesn't make much sense to me... FVI uses footage from SON OF GODZILLA for the intro. I'm surprised they got away with it, since the home video rights for both movies were with Video Treasures (Goodtimes put out a VHS too, I'm not sure how legit it was... likely many VHS releases back in the day). Anchor Bay bought VT and released a bunch of Godzilla movies to VHS (some from the New World Catalog, some from VT, and some from Golden Books Entertainment) right before the rights expired... some being picked up by Sony, one staying behind with Anchor Bay, and two being picked up by Classic Media when they bought Golden Books.
It's possible that Video Treasures may have had something to do with Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster since FVI did do work with their animation department.

vanhagar3000 said:

In the fall of 1991, Master Ninja I was copyrighted by Film Ventures International. It wasn’t specific on what it held copyrights over. Master Ninja II is also copyrighted by FVI, but no year is given on the credits, and is no more specific. These are edited together episodes of ‘the Master,” and there were seven released (with the first episode appearing on 2 VHS). Both “movies” at the end have a copyright by Viacom Corporation Inc. for 1984. So I doubt that these Master Ninja movies could be in the public domain, because Viacom should hold the copyright for 95 years from 1984 or FVI for 95 years from 1991. FVI it registered in 1991 at the LOC. Later that year, the first two was licenced to BBI and Comedy Central for use on MST3K. Sometime this year all seven VHS episode compilations were released on VHS by FVI. However, only the first two have a copyright listed on the LOC website.

Ahh, so The Master is owned by Paramount. I figured as such. This is probably the real reason why Rhino hasn't put them out.
You know, I didn't see any copyrights at LOC for it. Master Ninja III though was held up for whatever reason.

[pups4ever]

Something to ponder: If "Marooned" was liscensed specifically for MST3K, then it would technically be legal to air it (but not distrubute it). Think about it, they don't have the home video rights for it, and MST3K claims it as "their" work with the show. Maybe Best Brains knew FVI was sleezy and that's why they got several movies from them. They were willing to "bend the rules" and BBI and Comedy Central would be forever blameless.

[vanhagar3000]

I still think Marooned was gotten in some legit way. I could see other movies slipping under the radar, but not Marooned.Plus there is evidence that BBI got other movies from Columbia.

[Ron Codpiece]

I don't have much to add to this, except that I've seen what must be the original version of City Limits, complete with Kim Cattrall's topless scene and non-FVI credits. The end credits use the song that James Earl Jones plays on his car's tape deck as the good guys drive back to attack the compound.

[Ron Codpiece]

UPDATE: I was browsing through an online gallery of old VHS cover art, and I found this:



So I guess that at least one FVI edit actually made it to shelves outside of MST3K.

[Deleted]

vanhagar3000 said:

It's possible that Video Treasures may have had something to do with Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster since FVI did do work with their animation department.

OK, I know I'm writing a very pedantic reply to a 14-year old post but bear with me. I searched for a more recent thread about Film Ventures and Godzilla but this was the thread which seemed most appropriate.

In short, FVI had no right to release Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster or produce a derivative version of the film (new music, opening credits, etc.), and therefore the MST3K version was produced illegally as well (albeit apparently unintentionally). I quoted this particular Van Hagar post because later on I'll prove that Video Treasures had nothing to do with FVI's version.

But first let's talk about copyright law pertaining to film. Prior to 1989, if your film was released in the U.S. without a sufficient copyright notice, it automatically became public domain. The law, dating from 1909, was very specific about how a copyright notice must be applied to the film for the work to be protected, and said notice required three separate elements: 1) The word "Copyright", the copyright symbol, or the abbreviation "Copr.", 2) the first year of publication of the work, and 3) the name of the copyright owner. A good copyright notice would have looked like "Copyright 1950 Paramount Pictures". (This is covered in page six of this Copyright Basics document from copyright.gov.) All this info will come into play later.

In Japan, Toho produced and released the film we know as Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster in 1966. In 1968, the Walter Reade Organization licensed the film from Toho and produced its own English language version, titled "Godzilla versus the Sea Monster", which went straight to TV. WRO cut approximately four minutes of footage (mostly from the opening credits) and commissioned a new English soundtrack. (Toho had earlier commissioned its own English dub, but that version was unseen in North America until 2004 and isn't relevant to my post.) Sea Monster was the second of three Godzilla films originally released by Walter Reade (also Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster and Son of Godzilla).

Walter Reade didn't last much longer after 1968; according to the LA Times, Alan Gleitsman formed Alan Enterprises in 1970 and pretty quickly thereafter absorbed WRO's film assets. Sometime during this period, Alan Enterprises performed minor alterations to its three Godzilla movies, chiefly replacing the Walter Reade logo with its own cheap but awesome logo. The Godzillas were still part of the Alan Enterprises library when that company was bought out by Color Systems Technology (CST Entertainment) in 1986. CST licensed these movies to Video Treasures in the late '80s but the Alan Enterprises logo was still on all three films, even as late as 1997, when re-released by Anchor Bay. We know CST licensed the film because they're credited on the video sleeves for all three films.

Prior to this, in the early 1980s, home video took off in the U.S. and a lot of independent video distributors began releasing any conceivable public domain movie on VHS. Ghidrah, Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, and Son of Godzilla were three such movies, released by countless video labels (this blog catalogs most of the Godzilla VHS releases; all but the Video Treasures, Anchor Bay, and Goodtimes releases of these three movies were unlicensed, apparently on the assumption of public domain). See, perhaps by oversight, none of these movies in their original U.S.-released-forms featured a copyright notice of any kind. It's really easy to spot these "PD versions" of these movies, as none of them have the Alan Enterprises logo. Additionally, in the properly licensed releases, the original end titles have been replaced by these end titles with copyright notices. Finally, the licensed releases use higher quality video transfers, while the unlicensed releases were mastered from long-circulating 16mm prints and generally look like borderline-unwatchable faded crap.

But here's the thing: none of these Godzilla movies ever lapsed into public domain, thanks to some convoluted loopholes. Here's a lengthy and informative blog post explaining the Japanese and U.S. copyright situations for the Godzilla films, at least as best as the author can determine. In Japan, Sea Monster is still under copyright to Toho, although the duration of copyright protection is a bit hazy. The English version of the film, produced in 1968 by Walter Reade Organization and released that year without copyright notice, is also protected (not public domain) because it's a derivative version of a copyrighted work. Derivative works in U.S. copyright law are well-explained at Wikipedia, but the section relevant to this discussion comes from 17 U.S.C. § 101:

A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.

Now, I am not a copyright lawyer. But it seems to me that this is how Toho has managed to protect its Godzilla films from falling into public domain in the U.S. Otherwise, at least six Godzilla films would be PD (in addition to these three, also vs. Megalon, vs. Gigan/Godzilla on Monster Island, and vs. Mechagodzilla/vs. the Cosmic Monster). It surely also helps that Toho has aggressive lawyers. It's also been proposed that Toho is able to use its Godzilla and character trademarks to prevent other distributors from releasing unlicensed versions.

But despite all this, in the early 1980s, it probably seemed a safe assumption that these Godzilla movies were in fact public domain since they didn't meet the obvious three criteria for copyright protection. This is why so many unlicensed versions could be found prior to official releases from Video Treasures, beginning in the late '80s.

Film Ventures' version of Sea Monster is definitely derived from one of those unlicensed video copies I mentioned above. This is a screenshot from the licensed Alan Enterprises video master. (Recorded from of all places the Disney Channel in 1997.) Here's the same frame from an unlicensed copy (released by Beech Video in the 1980s); although the color and fading is less intense in the MST3K episode, note that FVI's and Beech Video's have the same damage (actually a hair), which is not in the official release.

The same goes for Son of Godzilla: Licensed version (Anchor Bay, VHS, 1997); Unlicensed copy (Beech Video, 1980s); FVI, from the opening credits of GvSM. This was a much harder comparison to do since FVI applied their lame video filters over this footage and because only a few seconds of the movie were shown in episode 213. However, note the general similarity in color fading in the Beech Video and FVI versions when compared to the Anchor Bay release. Note too that, although the same white film damage is noticeable top right center in all three, the FVI has the same dark scratches (or video distortion?) along the left of the frame that's present in the Beech Video screen grab. I think it's pretty clear that the video source for FVI's version of Sea Monster was a couple of these unlicensed Sea Monster and Son of G video tapes. (One final note: FVI also released Gamera vs. Barugon on video as "Gamera Strikes Back". I do not have this tape, but according to an acquaintance who does, the FVI treatment here has the opening credits play over footage from Ghidrah, another of the "presumed public domain" Godzilla movies.)

Hopefully that helps clarify how this movie was used on the show and better explain the shady nature of Film Ventures/INI.

[Torgo]

Oct 1, 2020 14:45:40 GMT -5 @codyhimes said:

OK, I know I'm writing a very pedantic reply to a 14-year old post but bear with me.

Not only that but Van Hagar gave us the finger and deleted his account ages ago.

And he lived happily ever after.

Great post btw.

[TV's Cowboy]

Van Hagar?

[kmorgan]

Oct 1, 2020 14:45:40 GMT -5 @codyhimes said:

vanhagar3000 said:

It's possible that Video Treasures may have had something to do with Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster since FVI did do work with their animation department.

OK, I know I'm writing a very pedantic reply to a 14-year old post but bear with me. I searched for a more recent thread about Film Ventures and Godzilla but this was the thread which seemed most appropriate.

In short, FVI had no right to release Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster or produce a derivative version of the film (new music, opening credits, etc.), and therefore the MST3K version was produced illegally as well (albeit apparently unintentionally). I quoted this particular Van Hagar post because later on I'll prove that Video Treasures had nothing to do with FVI's version.

But first let's talk about copyright law pertaining to film. Prior to 1989, if your film was released in the U.S. without a sufficient copyright notice, it automatically became public domain. The law, dating from 1909, was very specific about how a copyright notice must be applied to the film for the work to be protected, and said notice required three separate elements: 1) The word "Copyright", the copyright symbol, or the abbreviation "Copr.", 2) the first year of publication of the work, and 3) the name of the copyright owner. A good copyright notice would have looked like "Copyright 1950 Paramount Pictures". (This is covered in page six of this Copyright Basics document from copyright.gov.) All this info will come into play later.

In Japan, Toho produced and released the film we know as Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster in 1966. In 1968, the Walter Reade Organization licensed the film from Toho and produced its own English language version, titled "Godzilla versus the Sea Monster", which went straight to TV. WRO cut approximately four minutes of footage (mostly from the opening credits) and commissioned a new English soundtrack. (Toho had earlier commissioned its own English dub, but that version was unseen in North America until 2004 and isn't relevant to my post.) Sea Monster was the second of three Godzilla films originally released by Walter Reade (also Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster and Son of Godzilla).

Walter Reade didn't last much longer after 1968; according to the LA Times, Alan Gleitsman formed Alan Enterprises in 1970 and pretty quickly thereafter absorbed WRO's film assets. Sometime during this period, Alan Enterprises performed minor alterations to its three Godzilla movies, chiefly replacing the Walter Reade logo with its own cheap but awesome logo. The Godzillas were still part of the Alan Enterprises library when that company was bought out by Color Systems Technology (CST Entertainment) in 1986. CST licensed these movies to Video Treasures in the late '80s but the Alan Enterprises logo was still on all three films, even as late as 1997, when re-released by Anchor Bay. We know CST licensed the film because they're credited on the video sleeves for all three films.

Prior to this, in the early 1980s, home video took off in the U.S. and a lot of independent video distributors began releasing any conceivable public domain movie on VHS. Ghidrah, Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, and Son of Godzilla were three such movies, released by countless video labels (this blog catalogs most of the Godzilla VHS releases; all but the Video Treasures, Anchor Bay, and Goodtimes releases of these three movies were unlicensed, apparently on the assumption of public domain). See, perhaps by oversight, none of these movies in their original U.S.-released-forms featured a copyright notice of any kind. It's really easy to spot these "PD versions" of these movies, as none of them have the Alan Enterprises logo. Additionally, in the properly licensed releases, the original end titles have been replaced by these end titles with copyright notices. Finally, the licensed releases use higher quality video transfers, while the unlicensed releases were mastered from long-circulating 16mm prints and generally look like borderline-unwatchable faded crap.

But here's the thing: none of these Godzilla movies ever lapsed into public domain, thanks to some convoluted loopholes. Here's a lengthy and informative blog post explaining the Japanese and U.S. copyright situations for the Godzilla films, at least as best as the author can determine. In Japan, Sea Monster is still under copyright to Toho, although the duration of copyright protection is a bit hazy. The English version of the film, produced in 1968 by Walter Reade Organization and released that year without copyright notice, is also protected (not public domain) because it's a derivative version of a copyrighted work. Derivative works in U.S. copyright law are well-explained at Wikipedia, but the section relevant to this discussion comes from 17 U.S.C. § 101:

A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.

Now, I am not a copyright lawyer. But it seems to me that this is how Toho has managed to protect its Godzilla films from falling into public domain in the U.S. Otherwise, at least six Godzilla films would be PD (in addition to these three, also vs. Megalon, vs. Gigan/Godzilla on Monster Island, and vs. Mechagodzilla/vs. the Cosmic Monster). It surely also helps that Toho has aggressive lawyers. It's also been proposed that Toho is able to use its Godzilla and character trademarks to prevent other distributors from releasing unlicensed versions.

But despite all this, in the early 1980s, it probably seemed a safe assumption that these Godzilla movies were in fact public domain since they didn't meet the obvious three criteria for copyright protection. This is why so many unlicensed versions could be found prior to official releases from Video Treasures, beginning in the late '80s.

Film Ventures' version of Sea Monster is definitely derived from one of those unlicensed video copies I mentioned above. This is a screenshot from the licensed Alan Enterprises video master. (Recorded from of all places the Disney Channel in 1997.) Here's the same frame from an unlicensed copy (released by Beech Video in the 1980s); although the color and fading is less intense in the MST3K episode, note that FVI's and Beech Video's have the same damage (actually a hair), which is not in the official release.

The same goes for Son of Godzilla: Licensed version (Anchor Bay, VHS, 1997); Unlicensed copy (Beech Video, 1980s); FVI, from the opening credits of GvSM. This was a much harder comparison to do since FVI applied their lame video filters over this footage and because only a few seconds of the movie were shown in episode 213. However, note the general similarity in color fading in the Beech Video and FVI versions when compared to the Anchor Bay release. Note too that, although the same white film damage is noticeable top right center in all three, the FVI has the same dark scratches (or video distortion?) along the left of the frame that's present in the Beech Video screen grab. I think it's pretty clear that the video source for FVI's version of Sea Monster was a couple of these unlicensed Sea Monster and Son of G video tapes. (One final note: FVI also released Gamera vs. Barugon on video as "Gamera Strikes Back". I do not have this tape, but according to an acquaintance who does, the FVI treatment here has the opening credits play over footage from Ghidrah, another of the "presumed public domain" Godzilla movies.)

Hopefully that helps clarify how this movie was used on the show and better explain the shady nature of Film Ventures/INI.



(Okay, this keeps ending up in the quote box, so I'll italicize my reply.)
This is actually very interesting.  It reminded me of what I'd heard about "Charade".  It's a high-profile movie with a top-quality cast from a big-time studio, but it ended up in a lot of PD video formats because Universal messed up the copyright notice in the opening credits.  
Oh, well.  At least that allowed Mike & Bridget to riff on it.

[Deleted]

Oct 3, 2020 22:04:22 GMT -5 kmorgan said:

This is actually very interesting.  It reminded me of what I'd heard about "Charade".  It's a high-profile movie with a top-quality cast from a big-time studio, but it ended up in a lot of PD video formats because Universal messed up the copyright notice in the opening credits.  
Oh, well.  At least that allowed Mike & Bridget to riff on it.

Here's a link while a whole bunch of similar copyright blunders. chart.copyrightdata.com/ch02.html

It seems that a lot of movies expired during that period when the law required you to file to renew after 28 years. From this list it looks like MGM had quite a few movies enter public domain circa 1978. Several of these were released in 1951 but with a copyright notice for 1950; I wonder if they filed to renew one year late, thinking they had 'til 1979.

[gorncaptain]

Stumbled across a FVI title I didn't know existed. I wonder what the title sequence was like?

http://instagr.am/p/BBlhhTxScaS

[TV's Cowboy]

I am surprised they had copies of that movie under that title. I am sure that would have been a legal nightmare.

[jcm]

Does anyone know where I can find the FVI VHS of "Master Ninja III"? I would love to see that someday if for no other reason to than to imagine what the MST3K episode might've been like.

[CrowTrobotfan92]

You’re going to need a GREAT amount of luck with that.