Cheeky Bob

You need to bear in mind that there may well be other rights attached to the work besides broadcasting ones. For instance, if we're talking about a broadcast television drama, while the broadcast rights might expire 50 years after transmission, the writer and other participants may continue to have a legitimate claim.

For instance, it's now more than fifty years since the BBC's famous dramatisation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but the source work itself is still very much in copyright, and will remain so until 2020.

JamesM

Taking the list of five areas in DB7's post, group 1 does not prevent group 2 applying when music recorded onto a 45 becomes 50 years old. When do the rules of group 1 prevent a television broadcast (group 2) from entering the public domain?

Steve Crook

That's why lawyers get rich, trying to sort out tangles like that

Steve

Cheeky Bob

It doesn't prevent it, but it does establish that other rights have to be taken into account. For instance, when recordings enter the public domain after 50 years, anyone seeking to redistribute said recordings will still have to pay royalties to the songwriters or their descendants until 70 years after their death.

So a recording of work by a long-dead composer might be redistributable (and many low-budget classical labels have been taking full advantage of this), but you won't be able to do the same thing with Beatles songs, even though the earliest recordings will reach their half-century in a few years' time - even if Paul McCartney carked it this year, you'd still have to pay royalties to his estate until 2077.

Pretty much whenever there's any kind of literary or musical element or anything else where other aspects of copyright legislation might apply. Recordings of live and unscripted television from the mid-1950s MIGHT have passed into the public domain, but it's impossible to be certain without examining individual cases.

But you can certainly rest assured that hardly any British or European television is genuinely in the public domain - at least not in Europe.

lesbourne

is there a register of films that are in the public domain

penfold

If you are talking about lapsed copyrights in the UK, I don't think so.....because it would only be a handful of titles. For a copyright to have lapsed, the prime movers behind a film - writers, directors, producers, and music composers must have been dead for 70 + years....this currently rules out all sound UK films, and all bar a handful of pioneer-era silents. Many of the silent directors had long and useful lives, so you will have another forty years or so to wait for any Asquith, George Pearson, Maurice Elvey DVD sets (unless someone is prepared to pay royalties to their estates of course....Stand by for a rush of George Melies (d.1938) DVD releases next year....and just to muddy the waters, if someone produces a restoration of an old film, new titles perhaps, or new musical accompaniment....then that restored version is legally as new as the current Harry Potter....

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

MrT

As has been discussed before on this forum, the 70 year copyright extension was only introduced in the UK on the 1st january 1996 - prior to this the 1988 Copyroght Act protected films for just 50 years from the date of their official release. It is unclear whether the 1996 ammendment was retrospective or not - this is yet to be tested in a Court of Law; although an answer given in the House of Lords on this point suggested that only works curently protected were affected, ie. those whose copyright was still in force on 1st Jan 1996.

Many will have read the "disclaimers" qouted by sellers offering bootleg films on ebay - "All works published before 1923 ........." - this statement applies within the US. A register of Public Domain films within the US includes Hitchcock`s GB classics including The Lady Vanishes, The Thirty nine steps and The man who knew too much - all held in the UK as part of the ITV/Granada archive! Indeed these three films plus others "protected by copyright" in the UK are available for free download at sites such as emol.com - what a mess.

In view of the confusion internationally on copyright I remain sceptical about whether the 1996 copyright ammendment in the UK was intended to be retrospective - and I am still hoping for clarity on this point from an authoritative source. (I asked the BFI but they declined to comment, giving me some standard answer about being unable to give legal advice, blah, blah, blah)

Mike (MrT) (all the way from sunny Normandy)

batman

I asked a lawyer friend of mine about this question of retrospective legislation a while ago. While he is not an expert on copyright law he said that unless it was specifically stated that the law would be retrospective it should not be taken as such. Therefore everything that was 'public domain' before the new legislation would remain so, unless the copyright was licensed to somebody after that date. I take it mean that if, say, a Hitchcock film was in the public domain in 1995 in would still be now. However if someone gets a copyright license for the film post 1996 it ceases to be public domain until that license runs out.

That's what he thinks anyway.

Bats.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

MrT

The public domain download site I mentioned is emol.org not dot com as in my first post. Apologies

Mike (MrT)

DB7

You could test it, the danger being that the studios have deep pockets for a legal case and you might end up living in a cardboard box should you lose and have to pick up the costs!

batman

I aspire to a cardboard box .

Bats.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

Moor Larkin

Yes. It's called e-bay.....

[code]http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487363@N02/sets/72157606700675506/code]

batman

Very good!

Bats.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

Steve Crook

They include some that definitely aren't public domain, like Jungle Book (1942)
They are probably assuming that US laws apply to all films around the world.
(a common, but incorrect, assumption)

Steve

Pricey

I think some of us have had this conversation once already (Diana Dors thread). Sellers on eBay are convincing themselves, eBay administrators and mugs like me that films over 50 years old are in the public domain. I think we have established that this is nonsense but I also think the broad consensus was that if no-one is prepared to legally purchase a copyright and then release an official version of any film then collectors cannot be too heavily criticised for dealing in or purchasing bootlegs of an otherwise unobtainable film. It seems to me that if no-one legally protects a film by owning and releasing it then the alternative is for that film to disappear, probably forever. I personally would rather tolerate the sharp practice than lose the film. The difficulty (for me anyway) is when a collection on eBay contains a combination of otherwise unobtainable and officially released material (such as a complete Will Hay collection).