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Topic: Public Domain movies?
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 09-30-2007 04:44 PM
quote: John Wilson
Public Domain's a tricky thing as far as I know. Although the film may be the soundtrack and music contained therein may not be.
Very true. In the natural order of the universe, companies want to retain federal protection forever and a day, not just for the limitation of the copyright law and they labor tirelessly to lobby, arm-twist, ply members with wine, women (or boys) and song, to get Congress to extend the protection for longer and longer periods.
What used to be 48 years has now turned into a difficult-to-determine 75 years plus the life of the author (so how long exactly is "the life" of 20th Century Fox?). Even THAT is not good enough for them, so they have used this end pass to thwart the law even more by claiming that the music or the screenplay are copyrighted as if they are separate entities, which of course they are not. When you book a picture, you don't have to go to the screenplay author or the music composer to get separate clearance from them, those elements are encompassed within the work -- without them the work would not be complete. The copyrighted work is inclusive of its elements -- it doesn't exist without them and it can't be copyrighted without them and still be the same work. When the authors of those elements sold them to the filmmaker, they become part of the SINGLE copyrighted work which is the film. The filmmaker doesn't get to separate them later for purposes of extending his copyright protection past the legal time frame. Yet, no one has the money or the balls to take on these corporate scum to challenge their bogus claims. Someone should get a print of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and run it just to challenge the idiotic claim that once a work goes into Public Domain it can then be retreived and re-copyrighted. The laws specifically states that can't be done. Same with the copyright notification -- leave it off or post it incorrectly and there is no copyright -- FOREVER -- it's a mistake that can't be corrected, or so it was before the studio conglomerates began tampering with the law. And no one challenges them because it is too expensive.
quote: John Wilson
As long as you're not charging admission though you shouldn't raise too many eyebrows.
Not true -- assuming it is not PD -- and the current mood of copyright owners is that NOTHING is PD and the minute anyone claims a work of theirs has going into Public Domain, here come their lawyers to claim otherwise.
The rule of thumb is that copyright owners don't give a rats ass whether you are charging admission or not, in fact, they have even started puting a phrase in the FBI warming statement on the front of DVDs: regardless of whether admission is charged . To them, you are taking control of their product and for that they want to cut off your nuts, end of story. It's as if you take someone's car and you and your buddies go for a joy ride and then return it to the owner. You get upset because he has you arrested, and you ask, "Why are you arresting me? I didn't charge my friends anything to go for the ride." Same thing with film exhibition and the studios.
Public Domain is like trying to get into a super-hot club; it's a nice idea, but there's those three burly guys a the door. So you try and get around those bouncers and you'll usually get beaten to a pulp.
Or Public Domain is like trying to get a super-model to go to bed with you. Enuf said.
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 09-30-2007 10:07 PM
quote: Frank Angel
When you book a picture, you don't have to go to the screenplay author or the music composer to get separate clearance from them, those elements are encompassed within the work -- without them the work would not be complete. The copyrighted work is inclusive of its elements -- it doesn't exist without them and it can't be copyrighted without them and still be the same work. When the authors of those elements sold them to the filmmaker, they become part of the SINGLE copyrighted work which is the film. The filmmaker doesn't get to separate them later for purposes of extending his copyright protection past the legal time frame.
That's only partially correct. I happen to be working in rights management these days and it's actually quite complex. While it's true that a theatre gets full theatrical exhibition rights and these days when any production is made, the producers try to get "all rights in all media throughout the world in perpetuity", it doesn't usually happen that way.
When the underlying elements contained in a film or TV program are different than the program itself we call that an "elemental restriction".
You see examples of this in syndication or on DVD all the time. For example, a DVD recently came out of WKRP In Cincinnati, but they had to change all the original music because the original rights granted were for TV exhibition only and didn't extend to DVD. The same thing happened when Michael Mann's TV show, Crime Story, went into syndication. Aside from the score, the commercial music for the show was originally picked by Al Kooper (Dylan organist, Blues Project; Blood, Sweat & Tears; producer of Lynrd Skynrd, etc.) and Al is a genius at this. But when the show went to syndication, the re-licensing costs for the music were so high, they had to take out the original music.
When CD-ROM XA came out sometime around 1989, I wanted to add still frames and sound from movie trailers onto a CD-ROM I produced (for a company) that was a database of home video titles and reviews from Variety. I had 46 page contracts to use 8 frames for each film and some soundtrack that all came not from the movie itself, but from the trailers, for use for three days at a trade show. I was told this was because there was always some musician who played on a soundtrack in 1948 who was still alive and would sue because he/she never gave permission for use in home video, since it didn't exist back then.
So sure, for a film in theatrical distribution, there's no problem, but once it's used in other media the rights become quite complicated and half the time, even the lawyers can't figure out if they actually have the rights or not. In many cases, they evaluate how much they think they'd have to pay if they lost a lawsuit and evaluate the risk on that basis.
But I do completely agree that Congress has abused the original intent of the copyright law.
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