World of Weird Al Yankovic

weirdojace @ Apr 17 2006, 03:46 PM wrote: That image had to be provided by Shout Factory in order for weirdal.com to have it. So therefore they're probably sending out the image to all the other places...

But they haven't yet, but you're right it would be at Shout's discretion once they do. At the moment Weirdal.com is the only place the image has been officially released. It's not even up on Shout's site yet. It looks like it was supposed to be a scoop just for Jon to use, but of course that means that TVShowsonDVD and Amazon customers just had to grab it for their sites...because you know god forbid we let anything remain an exclusive online.

Everyone else (retailers, info sites, etc.) will ideally get the art once the press release has been sent out, that is of course unless they steal it from Weirdal.com beforehand.

CatraDhtem @ Apr 17 2006, 04:33 PM wrote: because you know god forbid we let anything remain an exclusive online.

Let's please leave God out of any discussions. Religion has been declared not okay to talk about on weirdalforum.com.

And I will say it again: IT IS NOT STEALING. If someone puts something up on their website, they are putting it out there for all to see and, yes, if someone wants to use it for their website, then they have every right to.

Really, what's the point of complaining about websites that are trying to promote Al's work? He can use all the promotion he can get. TVshowsondvd.com takes their information from whereever they can get it, and it's a wonderful thing because they are usually the first place to check for any info on new TV DVDs. And Amazon is SELLING the DVD. Of course they have every right to use the image, and they SHOULD use to to promote the DVD.

EDIT: Also, I'm sure that if Al, Jay Levey, Shout, or Bermuda had a problem with those sites using the image they would have asked them to take it down. So clearly they don't have any problem with it. And if they DID have a problem with sites promoting their work, they'd be complete idiots. Hello? It's FREE ADVERTISING!!!

Bruce the Duck @ Apr 17 2006, 06:04 PM wrote: Really, what's the point of complaining about websites that are trying to promote Al's work? 

You've got a point, but it'd be nice if the websites using the picture would link to the Mothership.

Dr eBay @ Apr 17 2006, 08:24 PM wrote: You've got a point, but it'd be nice if the websites using the picture would link to the Mothership.

Um....they did.

Original Announcement on tvshowsondvd.com

Cover Art Announcement

tvshowsondvd.com ALWAYS states their sources.

Amazon Listing

Amazon doesn't list official sites with their DVD releases. It never does. So why should it for this one? It does list the imdb, though.

Jeremy is right... they're not stealing the image. It's the COVER ART for the DVD. Usually when people go to a site to buy a DVD, they find an image of the cover. Why shouldn't they find it when they try to pre-order this one?

This happens with pretty much every DVD. The cover art is usually released by the official website or whatever before it actually appears on any Internet retailers. But what happens when the cover art comes out? About 3 days later you'll find it on all of those sites.

weirdojace @ Apr 17 2006, 10:14 PM wrote: This happens with pretty much every DVD. The cover art is usually released by the official website or whatever before it actually appears on any Internet retailers. But what happens when the cover art comes out? About 3 days later you'll find it on all of those sites.

That's because it's sent to the retailers, not because they stole it from another site.

So... what makes you think the retailers stole the image if they always get it from the studio?

weirdojace @ Apr 17 2006, 10:45 PM wrote: So... what makes you think the retailers stole the image if they always get it from the studio?

Excellent and fair question, and thanks for being courteous in this thread by the way.

Well, so far only Amazon has the cover up, so that's already a sign. If the label provided art then at least one other retailer would have had it up by now; they don't just send cover art to one store.

But anyway, at Amazon it was a user-submitted image. There was an earlier indicator on the product page that's now gone (it was something like an "add an additional customer image" option or something to the same effect), but one can easily tell because the size dimensions are different from the usual DVD covers there. Even in the "search results" pages it sticks out like a sore thumb. In fact it is exactly the same size as the image on Weirdal.com, which is about 5% larger than usual cover art on Amazon. If the art was officially sent to Amazon, it would have been formatted to the site before being posted.

And of course the biggest clue was that while Amazon had the cover artwork up, the rest of the product listing was still incorrect or inconsistent. The title changed numerous times, and for a while the label was listed as Sony. A label wouldn't just send out cover art, especially for this kind of smaller release; they would also send out all the normal product specifications so retailers can set up pre-order pages, and it's highly doubtful that they would credit another studio.

Fair enough.

It's not much of a big deal though... when Shout releases cover art to the retailers everything will be the way it should be.

weirdojace @ Apr 17 2006, 11:15 PM wrote: It's not much of a big deal though... when Shout releases cover art to the retailers everything will be the way it should be.

Exactly. Like I said, it just irks me now because it takes away the exclusive nature of the news from Weirdal.com. To use the other case, TVShowsonDVD didn't merely link to the site and say "Check out Weird Al's site for an exclusive first look at the cover art!", they helped themselves to the image as well. It's unscrupulous and a tad disrespectful, and for a while I had thought they were a little better than that.

But oh well. That's the nature of the Internet, but that doesn't mean one has to like it.