Lester Norton, who writes under the pseudonym Solonor Rasreth on Blogcritics, wanted to excerpt quotations from the interviews with the soldiers who fought in WWII in the HBO DVD release Band of Brothers:
- The interview segments with the soldiers from the 'Band of Brothers' DVD are essential to putting into context the struggles depicted in the film series from HBO. It is a shame that the law prevents us from legally giving our readers an example of these interviews, which are only available on the DVD.58
Michael Croft, another Blogcritics contributor, finds that literature and professional film reviewers are privileged in their ability to be able to quote from audiovisual works in their reviews:
- The DVD special edition of the film Mansfield Park contains interviews with the stars and the director that provide information about how they blended elements from Jane Austen's life into her controversial book. Some of those anecdotes, which could be used to show how key themes were emphasized in the film, are only available on the DVD. That we cannot legally provide a multi-media sample of this material hurts our ability to provide the most clear and insightful reviews. It's as if Siskel and Ebert weren't allowed to show clips or the New York Times Review of Books were not allowed to directly quote from reviewed material.59
Jay Caruso, who contributed to the design of the Blogcritics website, believes that his ability to provide a full review of DVDs has been compromised, such as in his recent review of The Sum of All Fears DVD60:
- I recently reviewed 'The Sum Of All Fears' DVD release and touched upon some of the special features available on the disc. One of these features was the breakdown of the special effects created for the scene where the nuclear bomb was detonated. Allow[ing] viewers to see a segment of that special feature would allow them to experience part of it before they decided to make a purchase.
Unfortunately, as the law currently stands, our readers are being denied that opportunity … [t]hese extra features are only available on DVD and allowing them to see a portion could be the final nudge to get somebody to purchase it.61
Blogcritics contributor Travis Lee agrees with Mr. Caruso that consumers also suffer when reviewers cannot include quotations of ancillary material on DVDs:
- The specials and knick-knacks lurking around every [corner] of these [Lord of the Rings Special Edition DVDs] is enough to go out and buy yet ANOTHER version of this movie. It doesn't stop. Putting samples of commentary as well as effects and other non-sense on this your lovely BlogCritics wouldn't do the movie justice, but it'd sell about another million copies. However, I'm sparing Eric Olsen's future as well as mine and abiding by the law.62
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