Has Miike Been Dropped From Masters of Horror?

It isn't one hundred percent confirmed, but the rumblings are that Takashi Miike's Imprint has been dropped from Showtime's Masters of Horror. I've had a pair of emails about this today and a bit of poking around seems to bear it out.

The entire series is currently in the midst of screening at the Vancouver International Film Centre - with a handful of special guests, so if you can go you really should - but the Vancouver folks have dropped Miike's entry from their lineup. According to the official VIFC website the Miike screening was cancelled due to copyright issues. This is more than a little puzzling considering that the copyright would be held entirely by Showtime, just as the rest of the series is, so this really doesn't seem to wash. How can screening the rest of the episodes - even the ones that haven't yet aired - be okay and screening the Miike not be? Odd.

A quick scan of the TV Guide website turns up more bad news ... while they still have some skeletal information on the episode - little more than acknowledgement that it exists, really - it is the only episode in the series to not have an air date listed, meaning that there currently isn't an airing scheduled.

And while Showtime has their website regionally blocked - you can't read it without a US based IP address - I'm told that their page for the series has removed any mentions of Miike and Imprint entirely.

So what's the story? Has Miike gone far enough to offend a cable network, is it simply not very good, or is there some other explanation?

Thanks to Aaron and Ken for the heads up.