Distribution and Internet Phenomenon
Rede Globo sought to buy the Brazilian rights to the programme, presumably seeking to suppress it. However, Hartog had agreed with various organizations in Brazil that the non-TV rights should be given to them so that the programme could be shown widely by both cultural and political organizations. Globo lost interest in buying the programme when they learned this, and it remains unbroadcast in Brazil. However, many VHS and DVD copies have circulated, and the documentary is available on the internet, via peer-to-peer networks and video sharing websites such as YouTube and Google Video (where it was watched almost 600,000 times). Contrary to popular belief, the movie is legally available in Brazil, though practically impossible to find, mostly buried in libraries and private collections.
On August 20, 2009, the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported that Rede Record bought the broadcasting rights of the documentary from Ellis for less than US$ 20,000. This happened after a series of mutual attacks between Globo and Record because of an investigation conducted by the Public Ministry against Edir Macedo and other high profile members of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Macedo is the owner of Record since November 9, 1989. On February 14, 2011, the newspaper Jornal do Brasil (quoting the network's spokesperson) reported that Rede Record will broadcast the documentary in 2012, on a date yet to be specified.
Read more about this topic: Beyond Citizen Kane
Famous quotes containing the words distribution and/or phenomenon:
“The man who pretends that the distribution of income in this country reflects the distribution of ability or character is an ignoramus. The man who says that it could by any possible political device be made to do so is an unpractical visionary. But the man who says that it ought to do so is something worse than an ignoramous and more disastrous than a visionary: he is, in the profoundest Scriptural sense of the word, a fool.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Culture relates to objects and is a phenomenon of the world; entertainment relates to people and is a phenomenon of life.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)