1976:

Almost a year since we went over [to America] to defend our reputation in the US Federal Court, we have heard the terms on which ABC are prepared to settle the case, following the successful hearing of our appeal in June. ABC are prepared to pay our legal costs up to $35,000 and are undertaking not to edit any shows without our co-operation and approval. We have established that, should we refuse to edit, the shows cannot go out. From the BBC and Time-Life we have won deadlines within the next five years when the ownership of all the tapes will revert to us.

That was neat justice. The BBC had allowed ABC to make cuts without bothering to consult the Pythons because they didn’t consider the American market anywhere near as important as the UK market. So, after US Federal Court judges had deemed this breach of copyright, the BBC were prepared to give us back the rights to all our tapes, so long as they hung on to those for UK TV.

Not only did they still fail to appreciate the growing strength of Python in America, they also failed to predict the burgeoning growth of video and other ancillary rights. Thanks to the BBC’s dumbness, sorry, generosity, we were able to negotiate all these valuable rights for ourselves, and the license payers missed out on quite a few bob.

— Michael Palin, Diaries 1969 – 1979: The Python Years