Why we won’t be showing the Walking Dead anymore
Saturday, February 9th, 2013
Hey there faithful Walking Dead fans! We have noticed that over the last few days you’ve been inquiring as to whether we’ll be showing it on the big screen again when the mid season premiere happens on Sunday. The answer is no, and here’s why. Towards the end of the last part of the season we received a cease and desist letter from AMC demanding that we not show episodes of their show because the screening was unlicensed. We responded that our business license from Direct TV allowed us to show television to our customers. We continued showing you the episodes.
After the season finale, we got another letter, which said that our business license was irrelevant because of the size of our screen. We did not respond because we were in the process of switching from Direct TV to Comcast. We did not think it would be useful to appeal to Direct TV since we were going to be discontinuing service with them. Comcast has since told us that they do not think screen size is relevant to whether or not our screenings are licensed, but have yet to produce anything in writing to that effect. So we will not be screening The Walking Dead until we feel secure in our legal right to do so (which may be never).
It is worth pointing out that we have always shown television content with the understanding that we were licensed to do so. We are not in the business of doing unlicensed presentations. That said, it is unfortunate that AMC cannot see the value of getting such an enthusiastic group together to watch and enjoy their show. It is difficult to imagine how there is value in using their resources to shut down such an enthusiastic bunch of fans.
We hope we can get it worked out and deliver good news in the future, but our whole business model is built upon the notion that content should be properly licensed. So if we are not absolutely sure that any content is not properly licensed, we will not show it. Thanks for coming out for the first half of the season. I promise that it was as fun for us as it was for you. We love you guys!
[...] tipper Dan let us know about the sad case of Cinema Salem, which had to cancel its popular Walking Dead screening series: Hey there faithful Walking Dead [...]
Hey so I was so looking forward into coming out and watching this tonight! But just got a txt from someone who also is a huge fan of the show. Iv met people here in cinemasalem who are also huge fans of the show and it’s like a small family ad now I’m just soo angry at Amc!!.. Can someone put a link up so we can have a bunch of people email them n get them to allow the cinema to put it back up! .. Now my Sunday’s are ruined!!
I just wrote AMC a letter regarding this. Maybe if more fans contact them, they will reconsider.
You’d think they could do the math and make the license worth their while. I’d also think Comcast has the most to lose here, I’d think AMC would be all for it. I’m sure it’s an overzealous legal employee who can’t grasp the bigger picture. I hope this gets resolved!
It’s another example of big business shutting out their customers and shooting themselves in the foot. How unfortunate that they can not see the value of pleasing the customer the way that the staff at cinemasalem can. Best of luck to you and your fans!
That’s a pity for AMC because if it comes down to a choice between watching home alone by myself or watching with a group at the cinema, I’m certainly not scaring myself when I’m home alone. Guess they’ve lost a viewer
You would think that AMC would be happy to have a captive audience being shown their commercial breaks on such a large screen.