Why can't "I will be with you" appear in the U.S. version?

[Iwark]

Konnichiwa. Ogenki desu ka? In this thread, I'll be talking about
a song "I will be with you(where the lost ones go)" by sarah brightman.
I hope this is in the right Forum. If not, please let me know.

There is a song called "I will be with you(where the lost ones go)" by
Sarah Brightman. It appeared in an anime movie "Pocket Monsters Diamond & Pearl: Dialga vs Palkia vs Darkrai".:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEy17g3HprY

Now, my main quesiton is this:

Why doesn't it appear in the US version? If somebody knows, please
let me know.

[ASHIKAGA]

Here is a quote from Wikipedia page for the movie.

...Sarah Brightman, famous for her roles in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, performs the movie's theme song, a cover of "Where the Lost Ones Go". The cover also features Chris Thompson. This is the first time an English song was sung in a Japanese dubbed Pokémon film.[citation needed]. The song was replaced by "I'll Always Remember You" by Kristen Price (who would also sing the theme for the next season) most likely due to the rights to the song are too expensive, and another song called "Living in the Shadow" followed afterwards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon:_The_Rise_of_Darkrai

[Iwark]

Here is a quote from Wikipedia page for the movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon:_The_Rise_of_Darkrai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon:_The_Rise_of_Darkrai)

What do you mean "the rights to the song are too expensive"? They should be able to buy it.

[ASHIKAGA]

Well, you have to ask the distributor/producers of the US version of the film. I was merely quoting the Wikipedia page.

They are assuming that the cost of the rights to that song was just too expensive for the budget the distributors had had for the US release of the film.

Another possibility is that Ms. Brightman's "people" had reservations about her song being featured in a kids' anime movie released in US (a much larger market compared to Japan), where she may have an public image that they would like to maintain and thought this may somehow do damage.

For example, many big-name hollywood stars appear in TV commercials in Japan. And most of them prefer not to have that known in The US. Why?
Let us take the case of Jodie Foster as an example. She is an accomplished, much-respected actress/director/producer in her native country. Appearing in TV ads for cars or canned coffee could possibly "cheapen" her image as a serious actress. She does it for Japanese TV because the ads are only shown on Japanese TV (and it pays well).

I am probably reading too much into it but when it comes to business like this, there are so many factors to consider and they just have to do what they have to do. In this case, they had to, or decided to replace Ms. Brightman's song with another song.

[Iwark]

Well, you have to ask the distributor/producers of the US version of the film. I was merely quoting the Wikipedia page.
They are assuming that the cost of the rights to that song was just too expensive for the budget the distributors had had for the US release of the film.
Another possibility is that Ms. Brightman's "people" had reservations about her song being featured in a kids' anime movie released in US (a much larger market compared to Japan), where she may have an public image that they would like to maintain and thought this may somehow do damage.
For example, many big-name hollywood stars appear in TV commercials in Japan. And most of them prefer not to have that known in The US. Why?
Let us take the case of Jodie Foster as an example. She is an accomplished, much-respected actress/director/producer in her native country. Appearing in TV ads for cars or canned coffee could possibly "cheapen" her image as a serious actress. She does it for Japanese TV because the ads are only shown on Japanese TV (and it pays well).
I am probably reading too much into it but when it comes to business like this, there are so many factors to consider and they just have to do what they have to do. In this case, they had to, or decided to replace Ms. Brightman's song with another song.

Why do they need to buy her song? They can just leave her song
unchanged. They don't need to buy it.

[nice gaijin]

Why do they need to buy her song? They can just leave her song unchanged. They don't need to buy it.
It's called intellectual property; you don't buy the song itself, but the rights necessary to reproduce the song. That means that depending on the rights they purchase, it may cost them royalties every time they air the song, or a percentage of the profits from DVD sales (it depends on their negotiations).

There are any number of reasons they couldn't obtain those rights, most likely they weren't able to negotiate an agreement acceptable to both parties, either because the cost to buy rights were too high, or the copyright holder didn't want to release the necessary rights (like in the example Ashikaga used)

[Derfel]

I think the short answer is: they wanted the audience to watch their next film too. I'm saying this because I ended up listening to the song.

[hkgx2626]

American TV stations haven't bought the copyright yet maybe...