"Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
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Re: "Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
#2Note that it was released in 1968. The law changed since then. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice
> For works first published on or after March 1, 1989, use of the copyright notice is optional. Before March 1, 1989, the use of the notice was mandatory on all published works. Omitting the notice on any work first published from January 1, 1978, to February 28, 1989, could have resulted in the loss of copyright protection if corrective steps were not taken within a certain amount of time. Works published before January 1, 1978, are governed by the 1909 Copyright Act. Under that law, if a work was published under the copyright owner's authority without a proper notice of copyright, all copyright protection for that work was permanently lost in the United States.
Re: "Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
#3> Night of the Living Dead's copyright snafu ended up costing him untold amounts of money in both the short and long term.
This has strong vibes of “If only Linus Torvalds had charged for Linux, he would have been a rich man today.”. It does not work that way.
> Somewhat ironically though, it's Night of the Living Dead's freely available nature that helped it become the revered classic it is today, as easy access and constant TV airings ensured that more and more people saw the film.
It’s not “ironic”, it’s completely expected. If it was only an old black-and-white movie, still subject to copyright, today the movie would be a historical footnote at best.
Re: "Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
#4> Night of the Living Dead's copyright snafu ended up costing him untold amounts of money in both the short and long term. This has strong vibes of “If only Linus Torvalds had charged for Linux, he would have been a rich man today.”. It does not work that way. > Somewhat ironically though, it's Night of the Living Dead's freely available nature that helped it become the revered classic it is today, as easy access and…
This is exactly the same way that It’s A Wonderful Life became a much-revered Christmas classic. If the copyright hadn’t expired allowing monthlong TV marathons, it would have faded into obscurity. How many people remember The Best Years of Our Lives, which beat it out for multiple Oscars in 1947?
Re: "Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
#5Did the distributor really have sufficient ownership of the movie to release a minor altered version into the public domain?
I remember a long time ago a language study startup called smart.fm released their material on RSS under a copy left license. Problem was that they didn’t mean to give it away, but worse, they didn’t have the license to relicense the material like that.
I kinda wonder where that puts redistribution of that material.
Re: "Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
#6> Night of the Living Dead's copyright snafu ended up costing him untold amounts of money in both the short and long term. This has strong vibes of “If only Linus Torvalds had charged for Linux, he would have been a rich man today.”. It does not work that way. > Somewhat ironically though, it's Night of the Living Dead's freely available nature that helped it become the revered classic it is today, as easy access and…
This is exactly the same way that It’s A Wonderful Life became a much-revered Christmas classic. If the copyright hadn’t expired allowing monthlong TV marathons, it would have faded into obscurity. How many people remember The Best Years of Our Lives, which beat it out for multiple Oscars in 1947?
What is the middle ground? Everybody knows that "free" has a huge appeal. But so does low cost, which arguably vastly reduced piracy for older movies and music. It seems that content providers found ways to unlock content by paying creators fractions of a cent. It would be cool if there was a standard way to acquire license for older content for very little without dealing with the copyright headaches.
Re: "Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
#7> Night of the Living Dead's copyright snafu ended up costing him untold amounts of money in both the short and long term. This has strong vibes of “If only Linus Torvalds had charged for Linux, he would have been a rich man today.”. It does not work that way. > Somewhat ironically though, it's Night of the Living Dead's freely available nature that helped it become the revered classic it is today, as easy access and…
This is exactly the same way that It’s A Wonderful Life became a much-revered Christmas classic. If the copyright hadn’t expired allowing monthlong TV marathons, it would have faded into obscurity. How many people remember The Best Years of Our Lives, which beat it out for multiple Oscars in 1947?
/me raises hook hand . . . Myrna Loy . . .
Re: "Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
#8> Night of the Living Dead's copyright snafu ended up costing him untold amounts of money in both the short and long term. This has strong vibes of “If only Linus Torvalds had charged for Linux, he would have been a rich man today.”. It does not work that way. > Somewhat ironically though, it's Night of the Living Dead's freely available nature that helped it become the revered classic it is today, as easy access and…
> If it was only an old black-and-white movie, still subject to copyright, today the movie would be a historical footnote at best.
That's a very ungenerous take. The film is very good and was revolutionary for it's time. Check out other horror films from the same era and the tone is completely different. Night of the Living Dead changed what horror films could be.
And there's plenty of old black and white movies still in copyright that are highly regarded as classics so I don't know what that has to do with anything.
Re: "Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly the same way that It’s A Wonderful Life became a much-revered Christmas classic. If the copyright hadn’t expired allowing monthlong TV marathons, it would have faded into obscurity. How many people remember The Best Years of Our Lives, which beat it out for multiple Oscars in 1947?
What is the middle ground? Everybody knows that "free" has a huge appeal. But so does low cost, which arguably vastly reduced piracy for older movies and music. It seems that content providers found ways to unlock content by paying creators fractions of a cent. It would be cool if there was a standard way to acquire license for older content for very little without dealing with the copyright headaches.
Copyrighted and then falls into the public domain after 14 years. Plenty of time to monetize, then benefits the public after a relatively short people of time.
Re: "Night of the Living Dead" accidentally became public domain (2019)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the middle ground? Everybody knows that "free" has a huge appeal. But so does low cost, which arguably vastly reduced piracy for older movies and music. It seems that content providers found ways to unlock content by paying creators fractions of a cent. It would be cool if there was a standard way to acquire license for older content for very little without dealing with the copyright headaches.
Copyrighted and then falls into the public domain after 14 years. Plenty of time to monetize, then benefits the public after a relatively short people of time.
Or you get 10-14 years for free and after that you pay for it and it gets more and more expensive the older it is. Disney can keep their mouse but after 90 years its 100M. 91? 105M. Etc. If it’s not worth the price, let it go.