What happened to the Yellow Submarine DVD?

[reechie]

I'll do some additional checking, but the only court case I can find reference to is the 1994 Subafilms Ltd vs MGM-Pathe Communications case. It did go to the Appeals court, so I'm guessing that the 2004 article you saw was in regard to the Appeals Court finding.
I never said there was any lawsuit or litigation. What I said was, there was a rights issue that had not been resolved, and the title was allowed to go out of print as a result.

[Drawer L]

The Kinks, for starters.

By the way, I think "A Hard Day's Night" (2002 Miramax edition) looks amazing...it only sounds like doody.Track down the original MPI DVD & compare....

[Beatlelennon65]

I think there is another version of AHDN floating around out there with the original mono soundtrack, from the same guy that did the Ed Sullivan shows. Can anyone tell me why a fan version of the Ed Sullivan shows looks better than the official release?

[Derek Gee]

I never said there was any lawsuit or litigation. What I said was, there was a rights issue that had not been resolved, and the title was allowed to go out of print as a result.

I guess it's possible that MGM quietly dropped the title while negotiatation of the "rights issue" is resolved, but given Apple's fondness for lawsuits, and the fact that MGM insisted on taking the Subafilms vs MGM-Pathe case to Appeals regarding their rights makes me think that's unlikely.

Derek

[Emilio]

I knew it was out of print, but I never thought there was any special reason for it. I remember it as one of the earliest DVD releases. I was lucky to find a copy when I bought my very first DVD player in 2000. I think it was already out-of-print, but there were still a few to be found. "Help", "Magical Mystery Tour" and "The Making of a Hard Day's Night" are also out of print, aren't they?

Cool picture of the laserdisc edition, I didn't know there had been one when the movie was reissued. I did know there had been one in the 80's and I have a VHS copy from it.

[Zack Dixon]

I guess it's possible that MGM quietly dropped the title while negotiatation of the "rights issue" is resolved, but given Apple's fondness for lawsuits, and the fact that MGM insisted on taking the Subafilms vs MGM-Pathe case to Appeals regarding their rights makes me think that's unlikely.

Derek
The initial lawsuit was over the original release on VHS and laser disc. However that was settled and MGM got the rights to re-release the film on all the video formats. But the contract with Apple was for a limited time only (I forgot how many years it was for). After that time the rights revert back to Apple (Subafilms). I don't know if the rights have been re-assigned but usually there is a time period to let the copies on the market be sold.

It was one of the first DVDs I bought.