ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

12 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

Each territory will have different local copyright laws, but you can bet a film from 1961 still belongs to somebody. Now, that person may not be enforcing their rights aggressively, however if you start making cash from their IP, they will be onto you for sure.

Try talking to a clearence agency and you might find a bit of useful background on http://www.creativeclearance.com/guidelines.html

12 years, 5 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

In short - there's enough vested interests to stop Mickey Mouse ever going out of copyright. If it's ever getting close to the time Disney would lose the mouse, you can be sure there will be a huge fresh round of lobbying to add more years to the copyright period

12 years, 5 months ago - John Ninnis

I find the public domain thing very weird. I know in the UK it's 50 years old and the US 75 years old. I know Driller Killer is public domain in the uk due to video distribution problems. But it not public domain in the US. Charade is public domain due that universal forgot to label copyright in the film but the score is.

12 years, 5 months ago - Allin Kempthorne

Your best bet would be to find a filmmaker who may have made something similar to what you're after who can license you the rights.
Of course, I don't know what it is you're after, but I own full rights to the 2005 film "The Vampires of Bloody Island" and would be happy to license a few clips worldwide, all media, in perpetuity for little more than a handling fee. (It's in colour, but we edited a piece as an old black and white horror movie for the DVD special features and it translates to that "age" very well.)
If of course, there was a clip that would work for you.
www.wibbell.co.uk

12 years, 5 months ago - Marlom Tander

US copyright law seems to be 95 years from creation. So right there you at least need a US lawyer confirming that it's Public Domain in the US, (or a nice plain english statement of US law from a reputable source that says the same thing) . Repeat for as many jurisdictions as you want to worry about. And an insurance policy to cover you and anyone else if they're wrong.

Courts are full of lawyers who expected to win. But when they lose it's not them that pays...

12 years, 5 months ago - Dylan Mohan Gray

This film is almost certainly NOT in Public Domain... generally only works which have been explicitly placed in PD are thus, unless the copyright has expired, which applies to virtually no cinematographic works as of now. You can use copyrighted works under certain conditions (Fair Use/Fair Dealing, Orphaned Works), but if you don't want your film to be encumbered or rendered "unshowable" you need to be on very firm legal ground (which is certainly *not* going to happen by way of a post on SP asking for "any good film lawyers out there" to advise...). You will probably find it is easier and cheaper to license usage of an old monster film from a stock house. You can pay only for a festival license to keep your costs down (provided they do that, not all do), but be sure to negotiate bump-up fees for later commercial usage from the outset, so you don't come back when you have a sale only to find the licensing fee they want at that stage is prohibitive. Best of luck...

12 years, 5 months ago - Dan Selakovich

Just because it's on a lot of sites for free, doesn't mean the copyright has expired. It means it has been pirated. There is no way a film from 61 is PD. Start here: http://www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/pubdomain.html Here's U.S. copyright basics: before Jan 1, 1978 you could copyright something for 28 years, then IF you renewed that copyright in it's last year, you could hold it for another 47 years. But yours was copyrighted in 1961, so its renewal fell AFTER 1978 agreements which means from '78 to '98, it could be under copyright for 75 years, and NOW it's after the 1998 agreements, which means a total copyright of 95 years. In short: somebody owns it. It can't cost too much, if anything. Find the copyright holder and get permission.

12 years, 5 months ago - Karel Bata

Best avoided. As Paddy points out, if your film goes into profit someone out there will likely decide that they're owed something. But you won't get that far - no distributor will touch it till you've got all the necessary clearances.

Public Domain for something so recent simply means that no-one's looking after whatever copyright persists, which makes it a bigger headache than a film where the copyright is clear cut.

My off-the-top-of-my-head suggestion is you consider using a film in which copyright is enforced and offer a percentage. But be flexible - some folks ask the Earth. I wanted clearances on one minute of a Garbage song for a screening at a festival a few months ago. They wanted wanted £30k!