Public domain usage

[Cracker Funk]

I feel kinda stupid asking this, but I just wanna play it safe.

If a movie is in the public domain, you can do whatever you want with it, right? It can be featured in your movie? Say, for example, one of your characters is watching it, and we (the audience), both see and hear it? Say, for example, George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead?"

Thanks!

 

[Zensteve]

If a movie is in the public domain, you can do whatever you want with it, right? It can be featured in your movie? Say, for example, one of your characters is watching it, and we (the audience), both see and hear it? Say, for example, George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead?"

You could even repackage it and sell it, if you wanted. (That's why it appears in so many bundles of cheap Halloween-themed DVDs)

Heh, we used your exact example in Slices, btw, as tv filler.

Much more fun to use your own previous films, though.

 

[Adeimantus]

Long as it's in Public Domain, it's all yours to do as you please with it.

It's good form to give credit, though. Heh.

-Charles

 

[Cracker Funk]

You could even repackage it and sell it, if you wanted. (That's why it appears in so many bundles of cheap Halloween-themed DVDs)

Heh, we used your exact example in Slices, btw, as tv filler.

Much more fun to use your own previous films, though.

Hehe. Sweet.

I have considered using one of my own shorts, or perhaps something from a friend. The original plan was to shoot something new. I'd hoped there'd be a chance of getting a recognizeable TV show, but it sounds like that's basically impossible, and a waste of time (something I don't have a lot of) to even try. These guys talk about movies all the time. I could see them watching random old-school stuff.

Oh, wait a minute. I just thought of a different reason why one of my previous shorts would be PERFECT!

I have more than one need for TV "filler", though, so I think Romero still gives me a helping hand.

Thanks!

 

[Cracker Funk]

It's good form to give credit, though. Heh.

-Charles

Definitely. Thanks.

 

[PositiveFuture]

Can anyone name some other classic public domain movies? Always good to have some of them on hand... I love reinterpreting old footage in new contexts too...

Im thinking of Un Chien Andalou, dunno if that's PD yet...

 

[Cracker Funk]

Can anyone name some other classic public domain movies? Always good to have some of them on hand... I love reinterpreting old footage in new contexts too...

Im thinking of Un Chien Andalou, dunno if that's PD yet...

The ones you want are all protected. Generally speaking, it's the ones that nobody cares about that don't get renewed. A simple google search will net big lists of public domain movies, and the pickin's are slim.

 

[PositiveFuture]

I'm looking for archive footage to put under a narrator voicing, you never know what you might find.
I could take ten good PD movies and use them for years. I figure it's just another spice for the visual stew I make.

Wired disagree with you. You might have seen all of the following list but they're new to me.

Don’t assume movies in the public domain are just too lousy to make renewing copyright worthwhile. That’s true of only 99.99 percent of them! Here are 10 worth downloading for your PSP or iPod. Find them at sites like PublicDomainTorrents.com or Archive.org.

1) Detour (1945)
Snappy dialog, femme fatale, guilt-ridden hero, flimsy sets – it’s protonoir that helped launch a genre.

2) Driller Killer (1979)
Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant) directs and plays a homicidal artist. Not the 1948 dance hit Killer Diller.

3) Night of the Living Dead (196
George Romero’s gritty classic out-brains the avalanche of zombie flicks it inspired. Mmm ... brains.

4) Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
It’s a Wonderful Life is out of the public domain? So what. The interplanetary battle for Christmas rules!

5) Superman cartoons (early 1940s)
Modern superhero flicks got nothin’ on these perfectly drawn shorts.

6) The Battle of San Pietro (1943)
Forget Private Ryan and get into real WW II bunkers with this gripping John Huston documentary.

7) The General (1927)
Buster Keaton is still the king of physical comedy. This train-hijacking romp is his masterpiece.

The Lost World (1925)
We’ll take the stop-motion dinosaurs in this seminal f/x flick over Jurassic Park’s CG crap any day.

9) The Street Fighter (1974)
Quentin Tarantino’s idol Sonny Chiba literally tears bad guys apart in a graphic karate-palooza.

10) Reefer Madness (1936)
One puff of wacky tobacky turns Depression-era teens into sex fiends, pinkos, and jazz pianists.

Anyone know where I can download high quality versions of these movies in easily managable 100 MB chunks? Maybe there's a site where they're serialised. Or does CF himself know where I can pick up DVD copies where I live?

 

[PositiveFuture]

omg I've got to get Reefer madness.

*

40 best PD flicks:

http://www.plmk.com/node/75

*

Download speeds from archive.org are surprisingly fast. Brainwave: As cybercafes are cheap in the town I'm just going to run 2 computers simultaneously. This thread REALLY gave me some ideas.

 

[PositiveFuture]

I know this is technically the legal forum, but it can't hurt to put a few links up as a resource for other doc makers.

http://listverse.com/2007/10/31/top-10-public-domain-horror-movies/

10. Dementia 13
1963, Francis Ford Coppolla

John Haloran has a fatal heart attack, but his wife Louise won’t get any of the inheritance when Lady Haloran dies if John is dead. Louise forges a letter from John to convince the rest of his family he’s been called to New York on important business, and goes to his Irish ancestral home, Castle Haloran, to meet the family and look for a way to ensure a cut of the loot. Seven years earlier John’s sister Kathleen was drowned in the pond, and the Halorans enact a morbid ritual in remembrance. Secrets shroud the sister’s demise, and soon the family and guests begin experiencing an attrition problem.

9. Phantom of the Opera
1925, Rupert Julian

At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role (Marguerite in Faust) for unknown Christine Daae. Christine meets this phantom (a masked man) in the catacombs, where he lives. What’s his goal? What’s his secret?

8. The Last Man on Earth
1964, Ubaldo Ragona

Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only survivor of a devastating world-wide plague due to a mysterious immunity he acquired to the bacterium while working in Central America years ago. He is all alone now…or so it seems. As night falls, plague victims begin to leave their graves, part of a hellish undead army that’s thirsting for blood…his!

7. The House on Haunted Hill
1959, William Castle

Millionaire playboy Fredrick Loren hosts a party for his 4th wife Annabelle Loren at the “House On Haunted Hill,” a house that has seen seven murders, Fredrick invites 5 guests: Lance Schroeder,a pilot, Ruth Bridges, a journalist, Watson Prichard, the owner of The House On Haunted Hill, Nora Manning, a worker for one of Fredrick Loren’s companies, and David Trent, a psychiatrist. Fredrick will offer each of them $10,000 to spend a night in The House On Haunted Hill. They all want the money. At midnight, the caretakers lock to doors, and the terror begins!

6. Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde
1920, John Robertson

Based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men – a good and an evil side. He believes that by separating the two men can become liberated. He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and transforms into Hyde to commit horrendous crimes.

5. Night of the Living Dead
1968, George Romero

The dead come back to life and eat the living in this low budget, black and white film. Several people barricade themselves inside a rural house in an attempt to survive the night. Outside are hordes of relentless, shambling zombies who can only be killed by a blow to the head.

4. Dracula
1931, Tod Browning

After a harrowing ride through the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe, Renfield enters castle Dracula to finalize the transferal of Carfax Abbey in London to Count Dracula, who is in actuality a vampire. Renfield is drugged by the eerily hypnotic count, and turned into one of his thralls, protecting him during his sea voyage to London. After sucking the blood and turning the young Lucy Weston into a vampire, Dracula turns his attention to her friend Mina Seward, daughter of Dr. Seward who then calls in a specialist, Dr. Van Helsing, to diagnose the sudden deterioration of Mina’s health. Van Helsing, realizing that Dracula is indeed a vampire, tries to prepare Mina’s fiance, John Harker, and Dr. Seward for what is to come and the measures that will have to be taken to prevent Mina from becoming one of the undead.

3. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
1919, Robert Wiene

A horror film that surpasses all others. Alan relates the story of traveling magician Dr Caligari and Cesare. Their arrival in a town coincides with savage killings. Secretly Caligari was an asylum director who hypnotizes Cesare to re enact murders. But the final reel contains something, which will leave an audience shattered. It blows away all your moral certainties and beliefs. This is the true power of its horror. To leave you vulnerable and uncertain of what you feel was secure and certain.

2. Nosferatu
1922, F Murnau

An unauthorized production of Bram Stoker’s work (The legal heirs didn’t give their permission), so the names had to be changed. But this wasn’t enough: The widow of Bram Stoker won two lawsuits (1924 and 1929) in which she demanded the destruction of all copies of the movie, however happily copies of it were already too widespread to destroy them all. Later, the Universal studios could break her resistance against this movie. Count Orlok’s move to Wisburg (Obviously the real “Wismar”) brings the plague traceable to his dealings with the Realtor Thomas Hutter, and the Count’s obsession with Hutter’s wife, Ellen the only one with the power to end the evil.

1. M
1931, Fritz Lang

A psychotic child murderer stalks a city, and despite an exhaustive investigation fueled by public hysteria and outcry, the police have been unable to find him. But the police crackdown does have one side-affect, it makes it nearly impossible for the organized criminal underground to operate. So they decide that the only way to get the police off their backs is to catch the murderer themselves. Besides, he is giving them a bad name.

Text Sources: IMDB

 

[PositiveFuture]

Big list here:

http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/public_domain.php

Abraham Lincoln (1930)
Africa Screams (1949)
Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss, The (1936)
Andalusian Dog, The (Un chien andalou) (1929)
Ape, The (1940)
Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)
Bat, The (1959)
Battle of Midway (1942)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Beast Of Yucca Flats, The (1961)
Birth of a Nation, The (1915)
Black Dragons (1942)
Bluebeard (1944)
Brain That Wouldn't Die, The (1962)
British Intelligence (1940)
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (1920)
Carnival of Souls (1962)
Carter's Army (1970)
Charlie Chaplin Festival, The (193
Corpse Vanishes, The (1942)
Dementia 13 (1963)
Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules (1964)
Dick Tracy (1945)
Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947)
Disorder in the Court (1936)
D.O.A. (1950)
Driller Killer, Thee (1979)
Fighting Mad (1976)
Giant Gila Monster, Thee (1959)
Gold Rush, The (1925)
Great Train Robbery, The (1903)
Gulliver's Travels (1939)
Gunsmoke Ranch (1937)
Hell Town (1937)
Hercules vs. the Moon Men (1964)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Horror Hotel (1960)
Horrors of Spider Island (1960)
House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Image of Bruce Lee (197
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) (Part 2) (Part 3)
Invisible Ghost (1941)
Iron Mask, The (1929)
Jigsaw (1949)
Kid, The (1921)
Killers from Space (1954)
L'âge D'or (1930)
Last Man on Earth, The (1964)
Little Shop of Horrors, The (1960)
Long John Silver (1954)
M (1931)
Machine Gun Mama (1944)
Mad Monster, The (1942)
Man Who Knew Too Much, The (1934)
McLintock! (1963)
Meet John Doe (1941)
Mutiny (1952)
My Pal Trigger (1946)
Mystery of the Leaping Fish, The (1916)
New Adventures of Tarzan, The (1935)
Night in the Show, A (1915)
Night of the Living Dead (196
Nosferatu (1922)
One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Outlaw, The (1943)
Phantom of the Opera, The (1925)
Rashômon (1950)
Reefer Madness (1936)
Revolt of the Zombies (1936)
Romance sentimentale (1930)
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Secret Agent (1936)
Sex Madness (193
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943)
Sherlock Holmes and the Woman in Green (1945)
Show Off, The (1926)
Snow Creature, The (1954)
So's Your Aunt Emma (1942)
Street Fighter, The (1974)
Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)
Terror, The (1963)
They Call Me Trinity (1970)
Things to Come (1936)
Third Man, Thee (1949)
Topper Returns (1941)
Tormented (1960)
Trip to the Moon, A (1902)
Vampire Bat, The (1933)
Virus (1980)
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (196
War of the Planets (1977)
Wasp Woman, The (1960)
Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory (1962)
White Zombie (1932)
Windjammer (1937)
World Gone Mad, The (1933)

 

[mad_hatter]

Just a thought on this? Where would one stand if they wanted to remake one of these films?

Take 'Night of the Living Dead' for example. Could I, if I wanted to (not that I ever would), make my own remake of this movie? Same title. Same setting. Same characters. I'd have thought, in theory, this would be okay, since nobody (or everybody) owns the original material.

But it seems like a bit of a grey area to me. Is the title itself copywirtten? Romero and Savini already remade the movie with the same title. Surely, it would now be copywrite infringment for someone else to use it?

Not that it really matters, i'm just curious!

 

[Tinalera]

Interesting subject!

 

[JohnNetzlof]

Just a thought on this? Where would one stand if they wanted to remake one of these films?

Take 'Night of the Living Dead' for example. Could I, if I wanted to (not that I ever would), make my own remake of this movie? Same title. Same setting. Same characters. I'd have thought, in theory, this would be okay, since nobody (or everybody) owns the original material.

But it seems like a bit of a grey area to me. Is the title itself copywirtten? Romero and Savini already remade the movie with the same title. Surely, it would now be copywrite infringment for someone else to use it?

Not that it really matters, i'm just curious!

I'm curious on the first half of this at least, my understanding of Public Domain seems to tell me its all good to go ahead and remake a flick, however, nothing with the government is ever straightforward, it seems.

 

[PositiveFuture]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain

The public domain and derivative works

Derivative works include translations, musical arrangements and dramatizations of a work, as well as other forms of transformation or adaptation.[12] Copyrighted works may not be used for derivative works without permission from the copyright owner,[13] while public domain works can be freely used for derivative works without permission.[14][15] Artworks that are public domain may also be reproduced photographically or artistically or used as the basis of new, interpretive works.[16] Once works enter into the public domain, derivative works such as adaptations in book and film may increase noticeably, as happened with Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel The Secret Garden, which became public domain in 1987.[17] As of 1999, the plays of Shakespeare, all public domain, had been used in more than 420 feature-length films.[18] In addition to straightforward adaptation, they have been used as the launching point for transformative retellings such as Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Troma Entertainment's Tromeo and Juliet.[19][20][21] Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. is a derivative of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, one of thousands of derivative works based on the public domain painting.[14]

As far as I know, if a work is definitely in the public domain you can do what you like.

Shakespeare's plays, for example, are public domain. Look at what people have done with them. It's the same deal with anything else in the PD, whether it's been there for 3 years or 300.

There may be a few catches though, but I'm pretty sure it's OK.

People have no idea how many awesome films are sitting in the PD waiting to be plundered and cut up.

 

[mad_hatter]

I’ve just looked into this a bit more, I now believe that it would not be okay to remake one of these movies.

It appears that the copyright only applies to the actual film itself. You can, therefore, do anything you like to the original movie. The screenplay, however, would still be protected as the writers Intellectual Property.

I believe written works are copyright protected for the life of the author, plus 70 years, meaning that the works of Shakespeare, and novels like Dracula and Frankenstein, are public domain and you can do with them as you wish, rewrite them, sell them, make a movie...

As George Romero is still alive, Night of the Living Dead is still his intellectual property and cannot be copied.

I still don’t quite understand this though, as I’m sure I’ve seen new versions of Night of the Living Dead, where somebody has mixed the original footage with scenes they’ve shot themselves. I know for sure there’s a version that starts with the first zombie escaping from the morgue. As for the title, anyone hoping to produce a remake would have to check if it is trademarked.

I still don’t fully understand this, so if you’re hoping to remake one of these movies, best speak to a solicitor first!

 

[PositiveFuture]

I admit I don't know for sure.

One of the older guys here will know. Ask around.

 

[Zensteve]

As George Romero is still alive, Night of the Living Dead is still his intellectual property and cannot be copied.

Not so.

The reason his film is public domain was quite accidental, and not deliberate. The law (at the time) said that in order for the film to be copyrighted properly, it needed the copyright symbol (and a bit more) inserted in the ending credits. It wasn't. Whoever checked the final movie prints was probably shot... or at least fed to an army of zombies.

The law has been changed since then, so that this type of error cannot happen these days.

Interesting question about the IP of the actual screenplay, though. Probably more of a technical issue, though, as the film itself could have been remade shot-for-shot (and line-for-line) at any time, right up until Romero remade his own film... this time copyrighted correctly... with the goal of reclaiming some of his IP material. Very late, but still better than never, and it still doesn't change the PD status of the b/w original.

if you’re hoping to remake one of these movies, best speak to a solicitor first!

Very true.

 

[JohnNetzlof]

I’ve just looked into this a bit more, I now believe that it would not be okay to remake one of these movies.

It appears that the copyright only applies to the actual film itself. You can, therefore, do anything you like to the original movie. The screenplay, however, would still be protected as the writers Intellectual Property.

And thusly, the reason I asked, as both are valid points relating to the one I'm looking at;

Is the screenplay Copyrighted? Is the Movie?

The Movie, no. It's been passed into the Public Domain.

The Screenplay? Iunnolol! *ahem* Seriously, though, this is the first I've been discovered to find that the screenplay and the movie from it are seperate entities after a film has been made. I gues that's not right, but, follow this logic for a moment:

A writer pens out his screenplay, and succesfully sells it/moves on to produce it themselves. In the process they/the production company doesn't film scene 16, changes the name of the main characters, and changes the setting from Boston to Albany. Now, the screenplay and movie are obviously different and would have seperate copyrights, but, considering the movie is so radically different from the screenplay original, would making a remake of the movie, changing scenes, adding scenes, changing character names etc push it even further from the original screenplay? And thusly would the remake be a remake of the movie, not the original screenplay, and therefore the public domain tag hold?*

Further compounding this situation, let's say the original screenplay is based off another screenplay, but due to pull in Hollyweird at the time, the original writer received no credit, not even a passing glance of credit for his inspiring script. At what point does an "inspiration" become a "direct ripoff?"

EDIT: Aha, ohho! The plot thickens! Let's add to the mix the film is based loosely off true events, in which the writers interviewed victims of the original event, and got release statements from them, as well as the actual offender to use parts of reality in writting the script, how much further does this drive the conundrum?

*Not actually arguing this point, trying to show how my mind went in circles here, you see.

 

[Morris]

Even if the screenplay was copyrighted, there was a change in the copyright laws in 1976. Before then it had to be renewed after I believe 28 years. If it wasn't renewed, then it might be in public domain.