slavish copies of pre-1923 works?
idiotprogrammer
post might seem like I'm trolling. (actually I've tried submitting on
the bottom of the original thread and can't do it. that's why i'm now
starting a new thread now).
(original thread here:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.movies.silent/browse_thread/thread/f2dddb288dfd9635/4dce18904749667f?hl=en#4dce18904749667f
)
The thread so far had interesting information, but really didn't get
at the questions I was asking.
I am not a restorer or anyone remotely in the film business. I am a
scholar of the public domain with a little tech background and a
little video background. However, I would contemplate ripping/
transferring old silent vids if I fully understood the legal
requirements of doing so.
I recognize and appreciate that many restorers put considerable time
and effort into restoring old silents. I understand that selling DVDs
is one way to finance future restoration projects. But frankly that is
irrelevant to the public domain. We may admire and respect the work of
archivists, but the public domain is public domain.
However, here's is my understanding of US copyright law (and I am
certainly not a lawyer).
1. Fixed motion pictures works produced prior to 1923 are in the
public domain. Period.
2. Corel vs. Bridgeman established that slavish reproductions of
artwork published prior to 1923 cannot be copyrighted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corel_vs_Bridgeman
Significantly, if an artwork has been published in a book prior to
1923, a 1982 photograph of this same work of artwork could not be
copyrighted.
My question then is: where are the "slavish reproductions" of pre-1923
films?
Why aren't nonprofit organizations and archiving services like
Prelinger coming out with these kinds of versions?
Instead we have a ludicrous market where 95% of the silent films out
there are produced on (admittedly well-produced) high priced editions.
And many are pre-1923.
Surely that is not an ideal situation!
What do you think?
Yes, In a way, I'm asking for legal advice (and yes, expecting to get
accurate advice on a newsgroup is fraught with danger). But I'm more
interested at what people and organizations are doing to address the
problem of access right now.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Robert Nagle
idiotprogrammer
houston, texas
http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/
mikeg...@gmail.com
Prelinger coming out with these kinds of versions?"
Well, they would have to get their hands on materials first.
There are some films that are out there in lots and lots of 16mm
prints, because they were sold to collectors in the old days. That's
why it's easy to find el cheapo video versions of some things.
There are other films that exist only in collections and archives.
Archivists and collectors have spent a lot of money restoring them, or
a lot of time tracking them down, or simply have pride in being the
one guy who has X.
So they're not going to be very receptive to, hey can I borrow X and
give it away for nothin' on an el cheapo video edition? (Hey, Van
Gogh paintings are old and out of copyright too, but just try
borrowing one of them.)
There's also a basic question of economics. Lowering the cost of
access for the consumer won't mean more films are available, it will
mean less are. Because there's no financial incentive for the archive
or collector to share it, or even to bother with it at all.
In short, if you want to see more movies available, suck it up and pay
full retail for what's out there now and encourage the marketplace to
produce more. Or contribute money to an archive to pay for a
project. Or do any of a number of things within the existing system
to encourage it to do more.
idiotprogrammer
fixed works are not under copyright.
That means (in my IANAL interpretation) that you do NOT need access to
the original prints.
If you took a high fidelity photograph of the Mona Lisa using the
latest digital technology, would you have ownership rights over the
image?
No. In fact, according to Corel vs. Bridgeman, even the photograph
taken of Mona Lisa by your 2007 digital camera cannot be copyrighted.
As long as they have access to the 2007 image, anyone can do with it
what they wish. That is 100% clear from Corel vs. Bridgeman. The key
test from the court case is whether it is a "slavish copy."
What is less clear is
a)are restorations of image quality sufficiently transformative to
constitute a reworking? (I honestly don't know).
b)do superficial changes (like changing subtitles to make them easier
to read) constitute a reworking? (MY limited IANAL understanding is
that it does not constitute a reworking)
c)can transferring a VHS print made in the 1970s to digital form (and
removing commentaries, soundtrack, etc) constitute a slavish copy. (My
guess is yes)?
d)does merely transferring an image to another screen size constitute
a reworking? (I honestly don't know).
There is controversy about whether Corel vs. Bridgeman will endure as
a legal precedent. It has not been sufficiently tested or appealed to
have a definitive statement about it. Some have even suggested that
the specific details of the case raise doubts. However, as things
stand now, Corel vs. bridgeman is a precedent, and it has not been
contradicted.
Also, one reason you MIGHT need to have access to the original print
is to have an idea about how a later edition might have been
transformed during its restoration. But again, we get back to slavish
copies.
Yes, I see that there is social value in supporting restoration
projects. But to me it appears that public domain advocates and film
historians have not been offering lowcost alternatives to the special
editions.
Robert Nagle
On Feb 24, 10:56 am, "mikegeb...@gmail.com" <mikegeb...@gmail.com>
wrote:
idiotprogrammer
If I had access only to the 1990 VHS video and not an original print,
could I use it to make a slavish copy?
On Feb 24, 12:04 pm, "idiotprogrammer" <idiotprogram...@gmail.com>
wrote:
idiotprogrammer
If I had access only to the 1990 VHS video and not an original print,
could I use it to make a slavish copy?
On Feb 24, 12:04 pm, "idiotprogrammer" <idiotprogram...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Lloyd Fonvielle
> There's also a basic question of economics. Lowering the cost of
> access for the consumer won't mean more films are available, it will
> mean less are. Because there's no financial incentive for the archive
> or collector to share it, or even to bother with it at all.
>
> In short, if you want to see more movies available, suck it up and pay
> full retail for what's out there now and encourage the marketplace to
> produce more. Or contribute money to an archive to pay for a
> project. Or do any of a number of things within the existing system
> to encourage it to do more.
But the existing system is coming to an end -- it's in its final phase.
The emerging market model, which cheaper distribution methods allow, is
selling more different things to more different people for less money,
as opposed to selling a few things to as many people as you can at the
highest possible price.
If film archives put everything they held out on DVD, which they should
do anyway as a service to culture, my guess is that they would sell a
startling number of their less famous titles to a few customers (for
each title), a highly profitable number of their more famous titles to
many customers, and in general both uncover and develop a huge
unexploited market that just happens to be hidden from view at the
present time. (As the home video market was hidden from the Hollywood
sages who predicted that the VCR would mean the end of movies, as the
rental market for older films was hidden from the proprietors of walk-in
video rental chains.)
Think about it. Free airplay on the radio used to sell albums. Modern
authors who put their works up for free download on the Internet
invariably find that sales of the works in hard-copy book form increase.
Movies themselves found their audience and their place in culture by
charging five cents a pop to view them. Free libraries, located
everywhere, create readers who buy books.
Value for cultural products and markets for them are always created by
wide-dissemination at low prices, or for free. Trying to create value
artificially by limiting products and controlling distribution is the
end-game, not the opening move, in a recurring cycle. Selling silent
movies to people who already like silent movies, who are disposed to pay
a lot for them, is a doomed proposition, because your customers just get
older and eventually die. Selling silent movies to people who don't yet
know that they like silent movies is the only way for the market to grow
-- and that means lots of choices at low prices and lots of
opportunities to sample them for free.
Mar de Cortes Baja
www.mardecortesbaja.com <http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog>
mikeg...@gmail.com
> the original prints.
Well, you do if you don't have a copy! You seem to imagine these
things are out there for the taking. People have copies, they've
spent money finding the copies and doing things to them. If you don't
have a copy they are under no obligation to give you one.
> If you took a high fidelity photograph of the Mona Lisa using the
> latest digital technology, would you have ownership rights over the
> image?
The real point is, you couldn't take a good enough photo to make
serious commercial use of without the assistance of the organization
that holds it. Try printing an art book full of pictures you snapped
with other people's heads in the way, reflections in the glass, etc.
The standards are higher-- or so one hopes.
> c)can transferring a VHS print made in the 1970s to digital form (and
> removing commentaries, soundtrack, etc) constitute a slavish copy. (My
> guess is yes)?
It's a pointless question because it will look like VHS (which isn't a
print, it's a transfer, and a low-res one at that). Those things are
out there, but few people would think they're worth even the little
they cost to make.
> d)does merely transferring an image to another screen size constitute
> a reworking? (I honestly don't know).
For the strict legal answers to these questions, consult a lawyer. If
you want to know if the denizens of alt.movies.silent think the world
needs one more person making crappy videos of public domain movies,
the answer should be clear by now.
Support Kino, Milestone, Image, David Shepard, TCM, Criterion and all
the other good guys!
Eric Grayson
I have a large library of 16mm and 35mm prints that are public domain.
I would love to let you have access to them and I can even transfer
them for you--to DVD or straight to MPEG2 or MPEG4 streams.
Please let me know what financial incentives you will give me for this
service. I suspect that your motivation is to sell something in the
public domain without giving any money out to those who have slavisly
saved this material over a period of years.
If my material is going out over the internet, then I'm going to get
paid for the time I've put into preserving it, and the money I've sunk
into quality materials, which is non-trivial.
Otherwise, I can put you on my rare film showings mailing list and you
can take flickery copies off the screen with your cell phone like
everyone else does.
Eric
In article <1172336213....@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Darren
into home video
"My opinion about DVD is that it will continue to be a good niche product
but it will eventually
fade away. Customers have shown that their are two markets. One is the High
quality
market for home theaters where DVD has typically been and will be replaced
with HD
formats. The other market is just getting started and that is the lower
quality but easily
accesable media over the web. A lesson can be learned from the music market.
People will
settle for lower quality if it is easy to copy and distribute. We will
definetly see this patern
repeated in video/film. High quality will be the smaller but relevant market
and lower quality
will be king because of simplicity and portability. "
--
Darren
Christopher Snowden
> I am not a restorer or anyone remotely in the film business. I am a
> scholar of the public domain with a little tech background and a
> little video background. However, I would contemplate ripping/
> transferring old silent vids if I fully understood the legal
> requirements of doing so.
>
> My question then is: where are the "slavish reproductions" of pre-1923
> films?
> Why aren't nonprofit organizations and archiving services like
> Prelinger coming out with these kinds of versions?
>
> Instead we have a ludicrous market where 95% of the silent films out
> there are produced on (admittedly well-produced) high priced editions.
Not true. Between the top-tier video companies with the $39.95
deluxe editions, and the $5.99 eBay junk peddlers, there's a vast
middle tier of small labels putting out a large number of silents.
Grapevine alone has put out more silents in the last decade than Kino
and Milestone combined, and there are plenty of other outfits in that
middle tier, all offering their product for less than $20 a pop. New
titles come out all the time, the overwhelming majority of them PD
films.
If you were to take those videos and post them online, you'd be
ripping off the people who produced them: who tracked down the prints,
spent money to buy or rent them, spent more money for transfers, and
took the time and energy to put the video releases together. Yes, the
underlying material is generally in the public domain, but you're
still ripping off somebody's work.
Your "slavish reproduction" angle is purely hypothetical, for
reasons we could go into, but just accepting it for the sake of
argument, posting those videos online would result in a couple of
unintended consequences: Number One, the people creating the videos
would produce a lot fewer of them, and maybe stop altogether,
undermining the accessibility you say you want to encourage, and
Number Two, the people watching those dead-silent mpegs taken from
fuzzy old VHS editions will be seeing those films the worst possible
way. Hardly a formula for increasing interest in vintage cinema.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> And I'll answer the same way I did before:
> I have a large library of 16mm and 35mm prints that are public domain.
>
> I would love to let you have access to them and I can even transfer
> them for you--to DVD or straight to MPEG2 or MPEG4 streams.
>
> Please let me know what financial incentives you will give me for this
> service. I suspect that your motivation is to sell something in the
> public domain without giving any money out to those who have slavisly
> saved this material over a period of years.
>
> If my material is going out over the internet, then I'm going to get
> paid for the time I've put into preserving it, and the money I've sunk
> into quality materials, which is non-trivial.
The only way that's ever going to happen is if lots of new people get
exposed to lots of silent films at low cost and with maxiumum
convenience. That's how silent films got popular in the first place --
with hundreds of conveniently located storefront theaters that charged a
nickel for a show. You have to build a market before anybody can make
any serious money out of it . . . and the best way to kill an ailing
market is to raise prices as demand falls.
These are inconvenient truths because they involve serious finanacial
risk and long-term planning -- which are not things that modern
entertainment corporations, who only care about stock prices tomorrow,
are comfortable with.
If the Disney Company in the 30s and 40s had been run along the lines of
a modern corporation, Walt would have been deposed as chief executive
after the stupendous initial failure of "Fantasia", which followed hard
on the disappointing initial performance of "Pinnochio". The company
would not exist today -- just as none of today's major studios will
exist sixty years from now.
Of course I'm not suggesting that you have any obligation to help build
a future market for silent films -- you're a collector not an
entertainment company. But I am saying that releasing what you hold on
DVD or over the Internet at cost, or even at a loss, would eventually
increase the value of your holdings -- if not not for your then at least
for your heirs!
George Shelps
>If the Disney Company in the 30s and
>40s had been run along the lines of a
>modern corporation, Walt would have
>been deposed as chief executive after
>the stupendous initial failure of
>"Fantasia", which followed hard on the
>disappointing initial performance of
>"Pinnochio".
This is indubitably true. Flush with the
success of SNOW WHITE, Disney took
a major plunge with FANTASIA, PINOCCIO and BAMBI---all of which
underperformed and almost sank
the studio.
idiotprogrammer
If
you want to know if the denizens of alt.movies.silent think the world
needs one more person making crappy videos of public domain movies,
the answer should be clear by now.
Excellent point.
However, having access to crappy copies as avi files is better than
nothing. To put it another way: there's tons of 70s porn on the file
sharing networks, most pulled from VHS copies. Yes, it's true that the
quality is low, but it's still relatively available. (That is not a
great example because we're talking infringement here). At the same
time, that does not diminish the market demand for high quality DVDs
from that era. In fact, it may be said that the existence of low
quality versions only whet the appetite for higher quality editions.
(On the other hand, high quality editions can be ripped off just as
easily).
The point about having access to the direct print doesn't seem to be
the most important issue (although it's an important one). VHS copies
exist in abundance (relatively speaking), and my guess is that there
are more than one prints of famous works available of well known
silent films.
Christopher: I realize that I sound like I'm trolling, but we
encounter almost similar complaints in the world of public domain
publishing.
1. WILL PRODUCE A LOT FEWER VIDEOS(or books, in my example): Many
projects of distributing cost/labor have been started to preserve
works that fall out of copyright protection. I for example have
scanned about 10 books which I'm donating to Project Gutenberg. I
realize that preservation of film stock poses unique technical
challenges, but there are not THAT unique. (When you talk about
transcribing/preserving texts from 17th century or earlier, you deal
with similar issues).
2. RIPPING OFF. I guess I object to your use of the word "ripping
off". I'm not advocating willful infringement here. The idea that
investment of labor by itself is a reason for entitlement to continued
copyright protection has been disproven by the courts (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural ).
3. In publishing there is a trend for publishers to use "definitive
editions" as a way to keep public domain material perpetually under
copyright. They do this by making small editing changes, including a
few critical commmentary; thus a work published in 1900 can be
published as though it were originally published in 2006. At some
point we need to ask whether the restorations are in fact genuine and
enhancements or simply a way to extend copyright control. How many
times for example has Warner Brothers reissued a new edition of Wizard
of Oz, with some new gimmick ("new unseen footage!" "Ultra-Resolution
restored!") simply to extend their copyright control?
rj
idiotprogrammer
> the original prints.
Well, you do if you don't have a copy! You seem to imagine these
things are out there for the taking. People have copies, they've
spent money finding the copies and doing things to them. If you don't
have a copy they are under no obligation to give you one.
****
We deal with this same issue in Project Gutenberg. Interlibrary Loan,
people buying personal copies, institutions letting enthusiasts or
staff digitalize their own copies seems to work well with texts.
Recently google has gotten in on the act by scanning libraries of
research universities. Now you can download full PDF texts of a lot of
works published prior to 1923. It has transformed the field of
literary scholarship.
I don't deny that personal motivations and incentives play an
important role. But in the print/publishing world, I've been
pleasantly surprised by how much altruism is going on.
Robert nagle
On Feb 25, 6:26 am, "idiotprogrammer" <idiotprogram...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Lloyd Fonvielle
But the real point to be made is that these films, along with the other
animation classics, eventually became the basis for the company's
financial stability over the years, providing a reliable revenue stream
whatever the short-term fluctuations of the studio's fortunes. A modern
corporation is structurally incapable of creating product with this
capacity -- their directors would lose their jobs if they even suggested
it ("Let's make expensive product with low expectation of return in the
short term but fabulous expectation of return over several
generations!") This is why modern entertainment conglomerates have a
built-in tendency to produce ephemeral junk that slowly but surely
shrinks, rather than expands, their audience over the long term.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> I don't deny that personal motivations and incentives play an
> important role. But in the print/publishing world, I've been
> pleasantly surprised by how much altruism is going on.
The modern world has skewed our understanding of the way culture
actually works. Real culture is almost always spread by enthusiasts who
want to share something they love, without much regard to immediate
financial benefit. Using copyright to control the altruistic exchange
of works and ideas was an invention of modern corporations, not for the
benefit of their consumers, who get less access to fewer things, and not
for the benefit of the creators of the works in question, who get only
token returns from the sale of their works through corporate-controlled
distribution channels.
Almost all the literary texts that survive from antiquity, a major part
of the world's cultural heritage, were preserved by medieval monks
working on a strictly not-for-profit basis. They had other incentives.
George Shelps
Lloyd Fonvielle wrote:
>>>If the Disney Company in the 30s and
>>>40s had been run along the lines of a
>>>modern corporation, Walt would have
>>>been deposed as chief executive after
>>>the stupendous initial failure of
>>>"Fantasia", which followed hard on the
>>>disappointing initial performance of
>>>"Pinnochio".
>>This is indubitably true. Flush with the
>>success of SNOW WHITE, Disney took
>>a major plunge with FANTASIA,
>>PINOCCIO and BAMBI---all of which
>>underperformed and almost sank
>>the studio.
>But the real point to be made is that
>these films, along with the other
>animation classics, eventually became
>the basis for the company's financial
>stability over the years,
That's true. All the cartoon features
that failed on first release eventually
showed a profit through reissues.
But the real stability and profitability
for Disney came from Disneyland
and the move to television.
Walt continued making animated cartoon
features because that's what he thought
the public expected from him. But the
cheaper live action films made more
money and his $6 million 70mm SLEEPING BEAUTY failed and put
an end to expensive cartoons in his
lifetime.
> providing a reliable revenue stream
>whatever the short-term fluctuations of
>the studio's fortunes. A modern
>corporation is structurally incapable of
>creating product with this capacity --
>their directors would lose their jobs if
>they even suggested it ("Let's make
>expensive product with low expectation
>of return in the short term but fabulous
>expectation of return over several
>generations!") This is why modern
>entertainment conglomerates have a
>built-in tendency to produce ephemeral
>junk that slowly but surely shrinks, rather
>than expands, their audience over the
>long term.
I don't think that Disney planned a long
term release strategy for the cartoon
features. He was bitterly disappointed
that he couldn't follow up SNOW WHITE
with a series of equally profitable
cartoons
He threw himself into FANTASIA, PINOCCHIO and BAMBI with a fervor,
but none replicated SNOW WHITE's
success. The inexpensive DUMBO
and a contract to make government
training films kept him afloat during
the war years.
I realize that you're using the Disney
reissue strategy as a jeremiad against
corporations, and Walt probably did
share your populist anitpathy to big
business, but the reissue idea evolved
as an improvised response to financial
woes and not as a conscious business
strategy.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> I realize that you're using the Disney
> reissue strategy as a jeremiad against
> corporations, and Walt probably did
> share your populist anitpathy to big
> business, but the reissue idea evolved
> as an improvised response to financial
> woes and not as a conscious business
> strategy.
My usual jeremiads against corporations rest on moral grounds, but this
is just a simple observation about the economics of popular art, where
the biggest succeses and breakthroughs in creating markets come from
independent artists with big dreams. Walt may not have foreseen what
cash cows the animated films would become, but he had a gut feeling that
people would want to see stuff like that, and over time he was proved
right. I doubt that Griffith foresaw that "The Birth Of A Nation" would
establish the feature as the future of film exhibition and innaugurate a
whole new industry based on that form, but it did.
When modern corporations talk about the facing the reality of the
marketplace, what they really mean is facing the price of their stock
tomorrow, which often has very little to do with the reality of the
marketplace over the long term. The Biograph executives who refused to
let Griffith make features faded quickly into obscurity. Guys who
bought state's rights interests in "The Birth Of A Nation" ended up
running a new industry in Hollywood, and thereupon turned just as
conservative as the old Biograph executives.
The basic dynamics of this cycle never change.
George Shelps
>Walt may not have foreseen what cash
>cows the animated films would become,
>but he had a gut feeling that people
>would want to see stuff like that, and
>over time he was proved right. I
But you're ignoring the fact that animation
contributed the least to Disney's bottom
line. The theme parks, the television
series, the cheap live action features like THE SHAGGY DOG or THE PARENT
TRAP made much larger profits.
But it is true that since animation doesn't
date, the cartoon features were able
to become profitable through reissues.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> . . . you're ignoring the fact that animation
> contributed the least to Disney's bottom
> line. The theme parks, the television
> series, the cheap live action features like THE SHAGGY DOG or THE PARENT
> TRAP made much larger profits.
I'm not familiar with the theme park figures over time, but the
animation classics kept the Disney film division afloat during many lean
periods, including right before Eisner took over and started the
company's continuing resurgence. "The Parent Trap" may have been more
profitable on initial release than "Pinnochio", say, but it will never
make as much money as "Pinnochio" over time and thus never contribute as
much to the company's long-term viablity.
George Shelps
ll...@fabulousnoSPAMwhere.com (Lloyd Fonvielle) wrote:
>>. . . you're ignoring the fact that
>>animation contributed the least to
>>Disney's bottom line. The theme parks,
>>the television
>>series, the cheap live action features
>>like THE SHAGGY DOG or THE
>>PARENT TRAP made much larger profits.
>I'm not familiar with the theme park
>figures over time,
Disney earnings surged after the opening of Disneyland and the debut of
the
teleivison series of the same name on
ABC.
> but the animation classics kept the
>Disney film division afloat during many
>lean periods, including right before
>Eisner took over and started the
>company's continuing resurgence.
I don't know about that. The reissues
certainly brought in good revenue, but MARY POPPINS grossed over $50
million when that was a blockbuster number.
> "The Parent Trap" may have been more
>profitable on initial release than
>"Pinnochio", say, but it will never make
>as much money as "Pinnochio" over time
Probably not, but the live action features
were cheap to make and were top grossing films of their era. The
company
could not have survived on cartoon
feature reissues alone.
Lloyd, there is no doubt that Walt Disney
did not favor the corporate mentality
(if anyone did, it was his brother Roy)
and your point is to that extent true.
But you're wrong to ascribe the financial
success of the company to the
reissue of the feature cartoons. The
facts don't bear that out--according to
the new Neal Gabler bio I just read.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> . . . you're wrong to ascribe the financial
> success of the company to the
> reissue of the feature cartoons. The
> facts don't bear that out--according to
> the new Neal Gabler bio I just read.
I take your point. No company can survive on a backlist alone without
creating new product. I just meant to suggest that a strong backlist,
one that performs and generates revenue over the long term, can be a
crucial factor in helping a company weather inevitable low points.
Corporate thinking today doesn't tend to produce that sort of backlist,
since it's only interested in short-term performance.
Incidentally, "The Sleeping Beauty", which was indeed a 6 million-dollar
gamble that performed badly on its initial release, has over time earned
enough to become the second most profitable film released in 1959, after
"Ben-Hur". Give it another fifty years and it may well overtake
"Ben-Hur". The key is the time-frame you're thinking in.
George Shelps
>No company can survive on a backlist
>alone without creating new product. I just
>meant to suggest that a strong backlist,
>one that performs and generates
>revenue over the long term, can be a
>crucial factor in helping a company
>weather inevitable low points.
But I also dispute the notion that the reissues were crucial at Disney.
>Corporate thinking today doesn't tend to
>produce that sort of backlist, since it's
>only interested in short-term
>performance.
Lloyd, I will never view the corporate format as anything more than a
specific
legal and economic structure for doing
business. I see it as morally neutral.
>Incidentally, "The Sleeping Beauty",
>which was indeed a 6 million-dollar
>gamble that performed badly on its initial
>release, has over time earned enough to
>become the second most profitable film
>released in 1959, after "Ben-Hur". Give it
>another fifty years and it may well
>overtake "Ben-Hur". The key is the
>time-frame you're thinking in
I am aware that SLEEPING BEAUTY like
FANTASIA was initially a major box office
diappointment that eventually showed
a substantial profit. But the failure of
the film caused Disney to withdraw from
an ongoing attempt to "top" himself
in the feature cartoon field, so he, too,
looked at the shorter term and stopped
trying to recreate the triumphs of his
past.
David P. Hayes
news:1172406391.6...@h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> 3. In publishing there is a trend for publishers to use "definitive
> editions" as a way to keep public domain material perpetually under
> copyright. They do this by making small editing changes, including a
> few critical commmentary; thus a work published in 1900 can be
> published as though it were originally published in 2006. At some
> point we need to ask whether the restorations are in fact genuine and
> enhancements or simply a way to extend copyright control. How many
> times for example has Warner Brothers reissued a new edition of Wizard
> of Oz, with some new gimmick ("new unseen footage!" "Ultra-Resolution
> restored!") simply to extend their copyright control?
You are imputing to Warner Bros. a motive that they don't deserve to be
accused of. The various new collector's editions of "The Wizard of Oz" are
covered by copyrights that begin when the new compilations are issued, but
these copyrights are strictly on the compilation and on any new material
therein. The underlying copyright on the 1939 movie is not "extended" by
such later incorporations, and it remains that copyright on the 1939 movie
is governed by terms on which the clock began to tick in 1939.
> 2. RIPPING OFF. I guess I object to your use of the word "ripping
> off". I'm not advocating willful infringement here. The idea that
> investment of labor by itself is a reason for entitlement to continued
> copyright protection has been disproven by the courts (See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural ).
Feist v Rural (a Supreme Court decision) is a better precedent than the
Corel one you were selling hard when you first posted. This is not to say
that the Corel decision is faulty, because other court decisions lead to the
same conclusion, only at a higher level of the justice system.
"Lloyd Fonvielle" <ll...@fabulousnoSPAMwhere.com> wrote in message
news:Iy%Dh.5794$qr5....@newsfe19.lga...
> If film archives put everything they held out on DVD, which they should do
> anyway as a service to culture, my guess is that they would sell a
> startling number of their less famous titles to a few customers (for each
> title), a highly profitable number of their more famous titles to many
> customers, and in general both uncover and develop a huge unexploited
> market that just happens to be hidden from view at the present time. (As
> the home video market was hidden from the Hollywood sages who predicted
> that the VCR would mean the end of movies, as the rental market for older
> films was hidden from the proprietors of walk-in video rental chains.)
The evidence shows otherwise. Who needs to predict that high sales would
disprove "the Hollywood sages who predicted that the VCR would mean the end
of movies, as the rental market for older films was hidden from the
proprietors", when the Archives HAVE contributed (licensed) their films to
worthy projects such as the "Treasures of the Film Archives" DVDs, which
have come out sparingly for lack of support, and which have required NEA
grants even to put out what has come out?
> Think about it. Free airplay on the radio used to sell albums. Modern
> authors who put their works up for free download on the Internet
> invariably find that sales of the works in hard-copy book form increase.
Best-selling author Stephen King tried downloadable texts for new work of
his and had to give it up for lack of impact.
"Lloyd Fonvielle" <ll...@fabulousnoSPAMwhere.com> wrote in message
news:F1gEh.205759$IL1.1...@newsfe13.lga...
> Real culture is almost always spread by enthusiasts who want to share
> something they love, without much regard to immediate financial benefit.
And these people are not harmed in their desire to disseminate. All they
need do is use their own words and their own means of expressing themselves.
> Using copyright to control the altruistic exchange of works and ideas was
> an invention of modern corporations, not for the benefit of their
> consumers, who get less access to fewer things, and not for the benefit of
> the creators of the works in question, who get only token returns from the
> sale of their works through corporate-controlled distribution channels.
Do you have history to back you up? The framers of the early laws believed
that creation of vital new works is ENCOURAGED by offering originators with
legal protections against those who would take the benefits and provide
nothing as reward.
> Almost all the literary texts that survive from antiquity, a major part of
> the world's cultural heritage, were preserved by medieval monks working on
> a strictly not-for-profit basis.
You might blame wars, pillage and LACK of copyright for the texts becoming
displaced as they did.
"idiotprogrammer" again:
> However, having access to crappy copies as avi files is better than
> nothing. To put it another way: there's tons of 70s porn on the file
> sharing networks, most pulled from VHS copies. Yes, it's true that the
> quality is low, but it's still relatively available. (That is not a
> great example because we're talking infringement here).
Possibly not. Before this material was recognized as legal (for the most
part), producers would not copyright their films for fear that the copy at
the Library of Congress would draw attention to possibly-unlawful content.
This is beside the point here. Continuing:
> At the same
> time, that does not diminish the market demand for high quality DVDs
> from that era. In fact, it may be said that the existence of low
> quality versions only whet the appetite for higher quality editions.
And who should make the decision as to how a company's works (if the rights
to them are indeed owned) should be promoted, given away, offered as
samples, etc? There is an extent to which any owner might be wise to give
away a preview, beyond which he figures he cuts into sales. Do YOU believe
YOU should make that decision for SOMEONE ELSE?
--
David Hayes
Remove director name from address when responding privately.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Lloyd Fonvielle wrote:
>>Corporate thinking today doesn't tend to
>>produce that sort of backlist, since it's
>>only interested in short-term
>>performance.
> Lloyd, I will never view the corporate format as anything more than a
> specific
> legal and economic structure for doing
> business. I see it as morally neutral.
I disagree with you about that, as you know, but my point above didn't
concern morality. It was just an observation about the tendency of
modern corporations to concentrate excessively on the short term, to the
detriment of their long-term financial health. The Disney corporation
of today would never invest in something as radical and unproven as
Disneyland was when Walt built it in the 50s.
> I am aware that SLEEPING BEAUTY like
> FANTASIA was initially a major box office
> diappointment that eventually showed
> a substantial profit. But the failure of
> the film caused Disney to withdraw from
> an ongoing attempt to "top" himself
> in the feature cartoon field, so he, too,
> looked at the shorter term and stopped
> trying to recreate the triumphs of his
> past.
I'd say this had more to do with getting older and running out of steam
on the animation front than with a sudden concern about the short-term
bottom line. He turned his attention increasingly to Disney World, and
especially Epcot, which was conceived on a colossal scale. Walt's larger
vision for Epcot was scrapped by the corporation immediately after his
death.
George Shelps
>The Disney corporation of today would>
>never invest in something as radical and
>unproven as Disneyland was when Walt
>built it in the 50s.
Their partner was the ABC TV network,
then a distant third to CBS and NBC.
ABC needed a hit show and Disney
agreed to produce one if they invested
in the park. (Ironically, many decades
later, Disney acquired ownership of
ABC)
I think a joint venture of this kind would be very viable todsy
>>I am aware that SLEEPING BEAUTY like
>>FANTASIA was initially a major box
>>office diappointment that eventually
>>showed a substantial profit. But the
>>failure of the film caused Disney to
>>withdraw from an ongoing attempt to
>>"top" himself in the feature cartoon
>>field, so he, too, looked at the shorter
>>term and stopped
>>trying to recreate the triumphs of his
>>past.
>I'd say this had more to do with getting
>older and running out of steam on the
>animation front than with a sudden
>concern about the short-term bottom line.
No, Walt was extremely diappointed in
SLEEPING BEAUTY. He wanted something that would represent animation
at its zenith, and when the movie flopped
he knew that expensive animation was
not viable within the capital structure of his company.
>He turned his attention increasingly to
>Disney World,
Actually, he was bored with it---since he
had already done it once. His staff
soldiered on with the work in his stead.
> and especially Epcot, which was
>conceived on a colossal scale.
He did focus on Epcot, but he also
became enamored of MARY POPPINS,
which became his biggest hit. He would
ask the composers to come to his office
periodically to play a song from it,
"Feed the Birds" and he'd look out of his
window and cry.
> Walt's
>larger vision for Epcot was scrapped by
>the corporation immediately after his
>death.
Mainly because Roy Disney had been against it.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> "Lloyd Fonvielle" <ll...@fabulousnoSPAMwhere.com> wrote in message
> news:Iy%Dh.5794$qr5....@newsfe19.lga...
>
>>If film archives put everything they held out on DVD, which they should do
>>anyway as a service to culture, my guess is that they would sell a
>>startling number of their less famous titles to a few customers (for each
>>title), a highly profitable number of their more famous titles to many
>>customers, and in general both uncover and develop a huge unexploited
>>market that just happens to be hidden from view at the present time. (As
>>the home video market was hidden from the Hollywood sages who predicted
>>that the VCR would mean the end of movies, as the rental market for older
>>films was hidden from the proprietors of walk-in video rental chains.)
> The evidence shows otherwise. Who needs to predict that high sales would
> disprove "the Hollywood sages who predicted that the VCR would mean the end
> of movies, as the rental market for older films was hidden from the
> proprietors", when the Archives HAVE contributed (licensed) their films to
> worthy projects such as the "Treasures of the Film Archives" DVDs, which
> have come out sparingly for lack of support, and which have required NEA
> grants even to put out what has come out?
Compilations like "Treasures" and the Kino Edison set are stupendously
wonderful things but they're aimed at the specialst and scholarly
markets. They're expensive -- though worth every penny and then some to
an enthusiast like myself -- and would never appeal to anyone who didn't
already have a serious interest in the history of film.
Markets are expanded by easy, cheap access to things, which allows
people to develop an interest in something without having to invest a
lot in it up front. Free local libraries were the best engines
imaginable for expanding the market for books, just as free radio was
the best engine imaginable for exapnding the market for recordings. The
showing of older films on television, for free, was crucial in creating
a generation of film buffs with an interest in vintage movies. My own
obsession with old movies began with viewings of the classic Universal
horror films on television in the Sixties, for free, and I wouldn't be
surprised if that's true of others in this group.
>>Think about it. Free airplay on the radio used to sell albums. Modern
>>authors who put their works up for free download on the Internet
>>invariably find that sales of the works in hard-copy book form increase.
>
> Best-selling author Stephen King tried downloadable texts for new work of
> his and had to give it up for lack of impact.
It's hard to imagine how King's audience could get any bigger. Anyone
who has the slightest interest in his kind of fiction undoubtedly
already knows his work and has probably read at least some of it. Free
downloads HAVE helped a number of lesser-known writers to find an
audience and have expanded the sales of their works in book form.
People don't tend to read longer works in their entirety on a computer.
Downloaded texts are useful in giving a reader a taste of a work,
cheaply and conveniently. If they get interested, they tend to buy a
hard copy of the thing.
> "Lloyd Fonvielle" <ll...@fabulousnoSPAMwhere.com> wrote in message
> news:F1gEh.205759$IL1.1...@newsfe13.lga...
>>Using copyright to control the altruistic exchange of works and ideas was
>>an invention of modern corporations, not for the benefit of their
>>consumers, who get less access to fewer things, and not for the benefit of
>>the creators of the works in question, who get only token returns from the
>>sale of their works through corporate-controlled distribution channels.
>
> Do you have history to back you up? The framers of the early laws believed
> that creation of vital new works is ENCOURAGED by offering originators with
> legal protections against those who would take the benefits and provide
> nothing as reward.
That was only part of their concern. They also wanted a fixed term for
copyrights, to ensure wider dissemination of works and to encourage the
production of new works. Modern corporations now have the political
power to extend copyright indefinitely, which is exactly what they'll do
unless checked by the popular will -- or unless the Constitution is more
correctly construed.
The framers would also have been baffled by the idea of a corporation
holding a copyright in a work of art, and especially in multiple works
of art. At the time corporations were generally feared, as a possible
means of creating great concentrations of wealth that could challenge
the state for power. Corporations were allowed to exist only for fixed
terms and for specific and strictly defined purposes. The idea of a
corporation as something eternal, with the rights of individual human
beings, in an entirely modern invention.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Lloyd Fonvielle wrote:
>
>>The Disney corporation of today would>
>>never invest in something as radical and
>>unproven as Disneyland was when Walt
>>built it in the 50s.
>
> Their partner was the ABC TV network,
> then a distant third to CBS and NBC.
> ABC needed a hit show and Disney
> agreed to produce one if they invested
> in the park. (Ironically, many decades
> later, Disney acquired ownership of
> ABC)
>
> I think a joint venture of this kind would be very viable todsy.
Sure, with the proven track record of the theme parks. But if it
involved something as speculative and visionary as the original park
was, not a chance. Look at the kind of movies and shows Hollywood and
the networks are making today. Visionary they aren't.
ABC helped finance Disneyland for the value it thought it would get from
Disney's TV stuff -- not out of faith in the park. Everybody thought
Disney was crazy on that score.
idiotprogrammer
> You are imputing to Warner Bros. a motive that they don't deserve to be
> accused of. The various new collector's editions of "The Wizard of Oz" are
> covered by copyrights that begin when the new compilations are issued, but
> these copyrights are strictly on the compilation and on any new material
> therein.
Ah Time-Warner, don't get me started. First, their music division
still owns the Happy Birthday song which was written in the 19th
century. Also, although pre-1976 music doesn't involve copyright law,
Time-Warner still owns sound recordings from the 19th century
http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub133/findings.html and prevents
access to them. I don't find Time/Warner's commitment to the public
domain particularly admirable.
Moving right along...
porn/crappy copies/piracy.
It hasn't happened yet, but here's something that will certainly
happen: a studio will go out of business or lose the print only to
find that someone has already digitalized the DVD/VHS copy and it has
endured only by virtue of being circulated on the file sharing
networks.
****************
(more thoughts)
You need to separate the act of digitalization from the act of
restoration/editing. (I say this as someone not actually involved in
that line of work).
Digitalization is a hard task, but not impossibly so. You could take
LOC copies, digitalize the prints and put them online for the whole
world to do their manipulations/restorations. And wait for film
restorationists around the world to make their own editions/
alterations.
Let's talk about distributed labor and collaboration success stories:
Successes:
Project Gutenberg
wikipedia
SETI
Human Genome Project.
Linux (and by implication apache web server, computer languages,
Firefox web browser, etc).
These are all substantially more complex projects than film
restoration, and yet they have succeeded with public/private
contributions. They are cooperative/philanthropic in nature and lack
of funding has not really been a huge obstacle.
Instead of having digitalization, we have master prints kept in vaults
and access being sold for a price. Allegedly for the sake of
financing future restoration work. But in reality, it's a way to
maintain monopolies and obstruct other "open source" restoration
efforts. I would have less of a problem with special editions if
these restoration projects released all copyright claims after a
certain amount of time (say, 10 years). Or made the raw digitalization
of the print available.
(In the software world--which I know fairly well--we have the concept
of making the raw source code available as a way to encourage others
to build upon previous efforts and enhance the value of the project
for the community. The analogy is not quite precise; cultural
artefacts and engineering tools have different value at different
times in their product lifespan. However, in both fields, transparency
benefits both the user and future creators).
I don't have a real problem with paying the $75 or so to Image
Entertainment for the Unseen Cinema box set (for example) --if I were
sure that the money would help restoration efforts in the long term.
But I have to wonder whether that money would genuinely help aid in
the free distribution of public domain films. From my vantage point,
it allows certain individuals to develop certain preservation skills
for commercial use and individual copies to be cleaned up without any
promise of others being able to use it...but that is all. I would much
rather give the same amount of money as a donation to a nonprofit
foundation committed to free distribution.
Here in the USA, we have gotten it in our heads that private efforts
are self-sustaining and therefore more reliable at preserving our
culture. But that is a myth. Private efforts ensure that consumer
products remain available for sale; that is all. Public domain is
supposed to offer something more than consumer products; it is
supposed to make culture more accessible. It also makes possible all
kinds of collaboration that just is not possible in the private
sector. So far, I have to yet to see this happen in the world of early
American cinema.
Truthfully, I'm a scholar of the public domain, not a film
preservationist, so I will defer to the expertise of others on this
newsgroup. If anyone knows of public/private collaborations for
increasing access to public domain films (besides Prelinger), I'd be
interested in hearing about it.
Robert Nagle
Houston, Texas
http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/
On Feb 26, 2:36 am, Lloyd Fonvielle <l...@fabulousnoSPAMwhere.com>
wrote:
idiotprogrammer
private hands, but if their copies are in good enough condition, one
solution might be for LOC to auction off short term exclusive use of
these prints (10 years sounds like a nice round number) in exchange
for the company to release the raw complete digitalization free to the
web.
Perhaps I misunderstand the economics of digitalization and
restoration. Maybe LOC could grant such use for free to bodies with a
proven track record of handling digitalization. Is something like
this already happening?
Robert Nagle
Houston, Texas
http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/
On Feb 26, 6:10 am, "idiotprogrammer" <idiotprogram...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> > You are imputing to Warner Bros. a motive that they don't deserve to be
> > accused of. The various new collector's editions of "The Wizard of Oz" are
> > covered by copyrights that begin when the new compilations are issued, but
> > these copyrights are strictly on the compilation and on any new material
> > therein.
>
> Ah Time-Warner, don't get me started. First, their music division
> still owns the Happy Birthday song which was written in the 19th
> century. Also, although pre-1976 music doesn't involve copyright law,
> Time-Warner still owns sound recordings from the 19th centuryhttp://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub133/findings.htmland prevents
> Houston, Texashttp://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/
idiotprogrammer
subscriptions and library interlibrary loan would make it possible to
view these high-priced restored DVD's for a relatively low price.
That is not quite a solution. Netflix/Blockbuster deal only with
DVD's, leaving out lots of titles that became VHS but never made it to
DVD. Also, the costs are merely passed onto libraries which have to
balance competing demands.
My local library for the City of Houston possesses only a handful of
silent titles, a few Charlie Chaplin, Buster keaton, griffith and
maybe one or two others (no harold lloyd for example). They certainly
don't possess the Unseen Cinema DVD or Treasures From American Film
Archives or other boxed sets. This is Houston, the fourth largest city
in the US. (I wouldn't be surprised if holdings of university
libraries were more exhaustive).
(And yet I was able to buy discarded vhs copies of the Wind, harold
lloyd and 2 or three other silents for $1 each at a library book sale
a few years earlier; is that an argument for the incompetence of our
library or what? )
Robert Nagle
Houston, Texas
http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/
On Feb 26, 6:20 am, "idiotprogrammer" <idiotprogram...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I don't know if LOC copies are in shabbier condition than those in
> private hands, but if their copies are in good enough condition, one
> solution might be for LOC to auction off short term exclusive use of
> these prints (10 years sounds like a nice round number) in exchange
> for the company to release the raw complete digitalization free to the
> web.
>
> Perhaps I misunderstand the economics of digitalization and
> restoration. Maybe LOC could grant such use for free to bodies with a
> proven track record of handling digitalization. Is something like
> this already happening?
>
> Robert Nagle
> Houston, Texashttp://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/
>
Eric Grayson
> a future market for silent films -- you're a collector not an
> entertainment company. But I am saying that releasing what you hold on
> DVD or over the Internet at cost, or even at a loss, would eventually
> increase the value of your holdings -- if not not for your then at least
> for your heirs!
That's not been my experience.
The value of my holdings is measured by this:
a) If it is not on video, there's a demand to see it.
b) If there are stars, there's a demand to see it.
c) If I have the best quality copy, there's a demand to see it.
But:
a) No one will pay you to put it on DVD because it's PD.
b) Once it gets on DVD, it's "common" and demand for public showings
dries up.
I paid $300 for my 16mm print of Sabaka, which is PD, and let a few
friends have it on VHS. One of them gave a copy to Alpha Video, and it
is now on DVD at $1, for which I have been paid $0. There is no demand
for public shows of this film now because it is "common" on DVD.
I have probably sparked interest in this film but it has cost my $300
to do so. The key to Disney's long-term reissue approach is that they
take the videos off the market every few years to increase demand for
screenings. I cannot do this, and therefore I cannot ever increase
demand for a showing.
It is financially insane for me to put out DVDs made with thousands of
dollars worth of equipment, using thousands of dollars worth of film,
and then have bad copies of copies of them show up in stores for $1
when I am paid nothing. This is a sure recipe for disaster.
I'm all in favor of public showings, but the best-attended ones are the
ones in which you're seeing something that cannot be seen otherwise.
And that means "hoarding" rare titles, which I dislike, but at least I
can make a few bucks here and there by hauling out the prints and
showing them.
I am not in a financial position to give away prints like Johnny
Appleseed to anyone who asks. Someone once said that we should all
stop collecting film because crack is cheaper. That's not as much of a
joke as it could be.
But if someone is willing to cough up reasonable $$, then I will
certainly consider it. You wanna pay me $200 to license Sabaka and
then gimme $.50 for every download? We'll talk. I might still end up
losing money on the deal, but at least I have a fighting chance.
Free isn't going to happen. I'm not insane.
Eric
rod...@mont-alto.com
wrote:
> a sort of clarifying question:
>
> If I had access only to the 1990 VHS video and not an original print,
> could I use it to make a slavish copy?
I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that legally you could. You'd need to
make your own musical score (because that was created more recently
and is protected by a different copyright), or release it silent (in
which case it would be the lousiest conceivable way to see a silent
film, and would encourage very few who see it to have further interest
in the genre). When there are decent versions of these films
available, it's irresponsible to release corrupt, inferior versions in
the hopes that maybe a few cheapskates will buy it instead. They'll
hardly be converted to buying more expensive versions later. It's much
more likely they'd complain about the price required to buy a decent
version, with the proven example of the $5 edition in their library.
And as to the question "why can't people do it," of course they can,
and they do. My local bookstore has bad DVD versions of Dr. Jekyll &
Mr. Hyde, The General, Nosferatu, Phantom of the Opera, with lurid
colorful cover art as the one additional creative element. You won't
find rare films there, because the producers are interested in trying
to make a buck by underselling better versions, and even the classics
won't sell many in these low-end versions. And the quality is so
grungy that I'd bet that many viewers give up part way through,
thinking "last time I try to watch a film THAT old."
I released my own edition of THE GENERAL last summer, so I've been
through this. But I was in a position to release a version that has an
excellent video transfer, a pretty well-received new score, a
relatively intelligent commentary track, and I feel it stands up to
the best versions available. I could have instead done a DVD transfer
of FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE from a 16mm print I have access to
-- but it would have been visually several steps down from the
Brownlow / Gill version, regardless of the merits of our score, and
that wouldn't be doing the silent film genre any particular favor.
When I sell about ten more copies, THE GENERAL will break even on the
manufacturing costs. (This won't be an issue if you release self-
manufactured DVD-Rs, but your packaging quality will probably be less
impressive, and DVD-Rs have more trouble on a variety of DVD players.
Also, if you are burning DVD-R's yourself, printing inserts, and
assembling the packaging manually, you'll probably never recover your
time at a reasonable hourly rate if you're also selling them cheap.)
THE GENERAL took me several thousand dollars of investment in software
and recording equipment (that I will at least be able to continue to
use on other projects), and it took the work of musicians who
contributed in the expectation that eventually, when the manufacturing
costs are paid for, they'd get paid; something which is a big favor
from professional musicians, and for which I'm forever in their debt.
And it never would have broken even if we weren't out performing and
selling DVDs at our performances, which pushed sales and also let us
keep most or all of the cover price.
In short:
(a) IMHO, you can probably do it, technically and legally.
(b) IMHO, you won't make enough money to cover your time unless you
have a particularly good way to promote them and sell at least several
hundred copies.
(c) IMHO, you won't be doing the genre of silent films any favors
unless you can make a product at least as high quality as the versions
of the same film that are out already.
(d) IMHO, it's unlikely that you can do (c) and sell them any cheaper
than the current distributors are charging.
Rodney Sauer
Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
www.mont-alto.com
idiotprogrammer
> unless you can make a product at least as high quality as the versions
> of the same film that are out already.
> (d) IMHO, it's unlikely that you can do (c) and sell them any cheaper
> than the current distributors are charging.
there is a similar issue in the world of public domain translations.
Project Gutenberg publishes lots of translations which were published
before 1923.
Some are clearly inadequate or defective. Others are passable and
even good (see Constance Garnett's translations of Dostoevsky and
Chekhov for example). I for example recently scanned a translation of
Indulekha, a 19th century work written in Malayam (and one of the
earliest Indian novels). The translation was good--not excellent, and
in 2003 or 2004 it received a more modern translation and critical
edition (which was excellent). Indulekha probably is unknown to most
literary circles, but including it in Project Gutenberg is certainly a
way to get the book on the map for scholars.
I don't think having multiple editions necessarily "dilute" the
product itself. In translation there's all kinds of internecine
battles about which translation is better. As long as various editions
are properly identified, I trust the consumer/reader to sort things
out. I think the existence of amazon and the Internet in general makes
it easier for consumers to be aware of what's out there and what
versions to avoid.
Robert Nagle
Houston, Texas
http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/
On Feb 26, 9:20 am, "rod...@mont-alto.com" <rod...@mont-alto.com>
wrote:
rod...@mont-alto.com
wrote:
> As long as various editions
> are properly identified, I trust the consumer/reader to sort things
> out. I think the existence of amazon and the Internet in general makes
> it easier for consumers to be aware of what's out there and what
> versions to avoid.
This works for books, since amazon keeps track of different editions
and translations. But unfortunately they do not keep track of
different editions of films on video -- probably because the lion's
share of video releases are "official" releases and there are few
alternate editions. For instance, search for the silent THE THIEF OF
BAGDAD sometime, and you'll find that any edition gives the same
reviews, including complaints about missing scenes that only apply to
certain editions.
At least it's possible to give distinct titles to short-film
collections (like the alternate Arbuckle-Keaton compilations), and if
I ever release another p.d. film with our score I might title it "The
Mark of Zorro, Mont Alto Edition" -- not out of vanity, but so that it
might get its own listing at amazon.
Fred
<idiotpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>However, having access to crappy copies as avi files is better than
>nothing. To put it another way: there's tons of 70s porn on the file
>sharing networks, most pulled from VHS copies. Yes, it's true that the
>quality is low, but it's still relatively available. (That is not a
>great example because we're talking infringement here). At the same
>time, that does not diminish the market demand for high quality DVDs
>from that era. In fact, it may be said that the existence of low
>quality versions only whet the appetite for higher quality editions.
>(On the other hand, high quality editions can be ripped off just as
>easily).
Actually, in an article I recently read about DVD and the new HD-DVD &
BluRay discs, it said that the porn DVD market is in a severe slump
due to the reasons you claim are fortifying it. When stuff is
available for free online, sales fall drastically.
Even cheap PD DVDs have a hugely negative impact on the sales of
good-quality discs. How many copies of Kino's great Metropolis disc
have sold compared to the PD versions? And the PD versions didn't
really have much expense to recoup.
jessica
huge
market that will buy copies of pre 1923 silents in "cheap" editions by
all means
start releasing. them You should be able to find some old 16mm prints
cheap. If you want good material you can in fact get many things from
the Library of Congress for the cost of good transfer, which runs very
roughly $600-$1000 per hour depending on condition and format. Than
you can add the score and presto you have your own film to release. I
am sure there are tens of thousands
of folks waiting for some pre 23 Talmadges, the 40th version
( inferior ) of
Birth of a Nation or Phantom of the Opera. You can't use any existing
version
from Kino, Image, Milestone etc as all of them have fully protected
"special
contents copyright" to cover all the money and time we put into to
them. I can
assure you we have in fact collected damages in several cases from
companies
that used our "PD" material without paying us. We can protect the
music score
titles ( if we do our own) and any unique element we add to the film.
We would
be "idiots" if we spent money to release films anyone could copy for
nothing.
For the record everything in the new silent baseball film is "PD".
Anyone was
free to track them down, transfer them at best quality possible, add
titles, scores.
box it , promote etc. They didn't, we did and it THESE versions of
those films
are copyrighted.
On Feb 26, 7:43 am, "idiotprogrammer" <idiotprogram...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> One other small point. A friend made the point that Netflix
> subscriptions and library interlibrary loan would make it possible to
> view these high-priced restored DVD's for a relatively low price.
>
> That is not quite a solution. Netflix/Blockbuster deal only with
> DVD's, leaving out lots of titles that became VHS but never made it to
> DVD. Also, the costs are merely passed onto libraries which have to
> balance competing demands.
>
> My local library for the City of Houston possesses only a handful of
> silent titles, a few Charlie Chaplin, Buster keaton, griffith and
> maybe one or two others (no harold lloyd for example). They certainly
> don't possess the Unseen Cinema DVD or Treasures From American Film
> Archives or other boxed sets. This is Houston, the fourth largest city
> in the US. (I wouldn't be surprised if holdings of university
> libraries were more exhaustive).
>
> (And yet I was able to buy discarded vhs copies of the Wind, harold
> lloyd and 2 or three other silents for $1 each at a library book sale
> a few years earlier; is that an argument for the incompetence of our
> library or what? )
>
> Robert Nagle
Lloyd Fonvielle
someone makes money (though probably not much money) in a limited market
that's shrinking. The question is how to expand the market. It's not
going to happen through hoarding -- the sort you need to practice to
keep up the value of your prints or the sort that the archives practice
de facto because they don't have the funds to increase public access to
their holdings.
Markets simply do not expand by restricting access and charging higher
prices. That's an end-game strategy for exploiting an existing market
that's dying.
There's no simple solution that will result in immediate profits.
Putting "Sabaka" online for paid (but cheap) download would just be a
start -- but that sort of thing might lead to a shift in the way the
market for old films works.
Disney's policy of limited release results in great profits because the
value of its products has already been established with a large audience
by other means. My earliest happy memories of most of the Disney
classic animated films were created when I saw excerpts of them on
Disney's TV shows -- for free. Disney has gotten a lot of money from me
personally over the years -- in the form of laserdic and DVD versions of
those classic films -- in return for that initial free access it gave me.
If Disney had kept "Snow White" under lock and key since its initial
release and then suddenly released it on DVD 70 years later, it would
have tremendous value in the collector's market but hardly any value in
the mass market.
Eric Grayson wrote:
--
idiotprogrammer
Obviously you are more knowledgeable about the field than I am. I'll
grant that.
But let's get back to my original point.
Is your goal to produce a version that accurately portrays the film as
it was first presented?
If so, then you are producing a "slavish copy" (I'm not using the word
in a negative sense. That's just the language from Corel vs.
Bridgeman).
I recognize that restoring something from multiple and even incomplete
sources can involve significant work and creativity. But the closer a
restoration comes to fidelity, the less copyright control you are
entitled to have over a restoration (according to Corel vs.
Bridgeman). There is a contradiction here which hasn't been resolved.
Perhaps Corel vs. Bridgeman will be clarified in such a way as to
resolve this contradiction.
Robert Nagle
Houston, Texas
http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/
idiotprogrammer
post. (I realize as an layman/outsider I am bringing up issues you may
already have rehashed many times already).
In the print world we are undergoing a kind of "social revolution" as
a result of digitalization of public domain material. I don't see
anything comparable happening in the motion picture world (for various
technical, social and legal reasons).
My city of Houston library has a paltry number of silent DVDs.
Perhaps one solution is to raise money for my local library to
purchase more copies (so at least people in my city can request this
kind of material for free).
On the other hand, if it's true as they say that Japanese movies prior
to 1953 are in the public domain
http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2006-07-12 I might scan my cheapie import
of VCD of Ozu's 1932 "I was born but" onto google video.
On Feb 26, 12:43 pm, "idiotprogrammer" <idiotprogram...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi, there, Jessica,
>
> Obviously you are more knowledgeable about the field than I am. I'll
> grant that.
>
> But let's get back to my original point.
>
> Is your goal to produce a version that accurately portrays the film as
> it was first presented?
> If so, then you are producing a "slavish copy" (I'm not using the word
> in a negative sense. That's just the language from Corel vs.
> Bridgeman).
>
> I recognize that restoring something from multiple and even incomplete
> sources can involve significant work and creativity. But the closer a
> restoration comes to fidelity, the less copyright control you are
> entitled to have over a restoration (according to Corel vs.
> Bridgeman). There is a contradiction here which hasn't been resolved.
> Perhaps Corel vs. Bridgeman will be clarified in such a way as to
> resolve this contradiction.
>
> Robert Nagle
> ...
>
> read more »
jessica
score
added titles and any special element like say an essay.Tints are ifffy
but
could be argued depending on the situation So if you want to take
a Kino DVD, dub over a different score and change the titles
( depending on the
situation) you could. Of course it would I leave you spending
significant money for
inferior film so why bother. If you sincerely believe there is a huge
untapped market for silent films that would be cheap if not free ,
there are plenty of
resources for you to produce your own versions of PD films
On Feb 26, 1:43 pm, "idiotprogrammer" <idiotprogram...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi, there, Jessica,
>
> Obviously you are more knowledgeable about the field than I am. I'll
> grant that.
>
> But let's get back to my original point.
>
> Is your goal to produce a version that accurately portrays the film as
> it was first presented?
> If so, then you are producing a "slavish copy" (I'm not using the word
> in a negative sense. That's just the language from Corel vs.
> Bridgeman).
>
> I recognize that restoring something from multiple and even incomplete
> sources can involve significant work and creativity. But the closer a
> restoration comes to fidelity, the less copyright control you are
> entitled to have over a restoration (according to Corel vs.
> Bridgeman). There is a contradiction here which hasn't been resolved.
> Perhaps Corel vs. Bridgeman will be clarified in such a way as to
> resolve this contradiction.
>
> Robert Nagle
> ...
>
> read more »
mikeg...@gmail.com
that sounds good but is too clever by half for a judge.
Many of these films don't have any one definitive version (e.g.,
Intolerance). Or if there is a definitive version, it's lost and the
person reconstructing it is making educated guesses about many things
along the way (e.g. Phantom of the Opera). For that reason I find it
impossible to imagine that a real world judge would look at all the
work that goes into a reconstruction and say, congrats, you've
returned the film to the public domain. Okay, one judge might say
anything, but surely something that boneheaded would get overturned.
The work performed by a film restorer or archivist, or a label or a
studio or anyone else, has value. You cannot steal that value without
someone coming after you if they find out about it. As Jessica
indicates, they can and they have.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Digitalization is a hard task, but not impossibly so. You could take
> LOC copies, digitalize the prints and put them online for the whole
> world to do their manipulations/restorations. And wait for film
> restorationists around the world to make their own editions/
> alterations.
This is a very interesting idea and seems to point to the future of
information-sharing and cultural exchange in the digital era.
Suppose enough money were raised just to make a high-quality digital
scan of the best available print of the best and most wonderful silent
film currently unavailable and without immediate prospects of release on
DVD -- the sort of scan that would be used to master a DVD.
Suppose it was put up everywhere on the 'net under a Creative Commons
license allowing anybody to watch, download, copy and share the file as
long as the source was credited and it wasn't exploited commercially.
I'm talking about everywhere, in various resolutions -- on iTunes,
Google Video, bit torrent sites for the hi-res version, and any site
that wanted to post it. You could encourage people to make donations to
offset the cost of the scan, but that would be strictly voluntary.
The thing about the Internet is that you can never predict exactly how
content on it will spread or be used, but I'm guessing that very
interesting and illuminating things would happen as a result of such a
project. People would certainly abuse the license and make commercial
DVDs, but since individuals could also make DVDs for their own use, or
sell DVDs (illegally) at a cheaper price, it would be hard for a pirate
to make a lot of money off of it. You might defray a lot of the cost
from donations and it might create a new paradigm for silent film
distribution, one that might even get the attention of the archives.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> This works for books, since amazon keeps track of different editions
> and translations. But unfortunately they do not keep track of
> different editions of films on video -- probably because the lion's
> share of video releases are "official" releases and there are few
> alternate editions. For instance, search for the silent THE THIEF OF
> BAGDAD sometime, and you'll find that any edition gives the same
> reviews, including complaints about missing scenes that only apply to
> certain editions.
>
> At least it's possible to give distinct titles to short-film
> collections (like the alternate Arbuckle-Keaton compilations), and if
> I ever release another p.d. film with our score I might title it "The
> Mark of Zorro, Mont Alto Edition" -- not out of vanity, but so that it
> might get its own listing at amazon.
You've identified a serious problem, which Amazon really out to address.
(The problem does occur with books, too, occasionally, for example
with a review of one translation of a book attached to a different
translation.) If they attach reviews of one edition to a different one
they should at least identify the specific original edition reviewed,
though I can see how difficult it would be in practice to separate
reviews of the basic work from reviews that refer to particular
qualities of a specific edition. Somebody would have to read them all
carefully.
This is also something peer reviewers could pay more attention to.
Sometimes they're very helpful in this regard. I've been alerted to
problems with defective pressings of CDs by peer reviewers, with
information that includes the serial numbers on the cases of good and
bad pressings.
It's in areas like this that peer-to-peer marketing really shines.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Actually, in an article I recently read about DVD and the new HD-DVD &
> BluRay discs, it said that the porn DVD market is in a severe slump
> due to the reasons you claim are fortifying it. When stuff is
> available for free online, sales fall drastically.
Well, this begs the question of quality. The market for porn is already
established and probably as developed as it's going to get, and there's
not really that much difference between one cum shot and another.
Wanting to expand the market for silent films assumes that there's a big
undeveloped market out there and that particular titles have qualities
and distinctions that would make them attractive and valuable in their
own terms. Internet porn providers are trying to undercut other
providers in an already huge established market, which is why they're
willing to give away so much for free, but that's not the situation with
silent films, which need freer access to create and expand a market.
> Even cheap PD DVDs have a hugely negative impact on the sales of
> good-quality discs. How many copies of Kino's great Metropolis disc
> have sold compared to the PD versions? And the PD versions didn't
> really have much expense to recoup.
These PD discs almost always center on titles that already have
name-recognition. The people who make them are trying to undercut
prices in an already-existing and very small market -- not trying to
expand the market with good, cheap editions of lesser-known works.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> I'm going to shut up now, I promise! Hopefully this will be my last
> post. (I realize as an layman/outsider I am bringing up issues you may
> already have rehashed many times already).
>
> In the print world we are undergoing a kind of "social revolution" as
> a result of digitalization of public domain material. I don't see
> anything comparable happening in the motion picture world (for various
> technical, social and legal reasons).
It will happen -- it's just a question of when and how. You've raised
the most important issue in this whole discussion -- how can the unique
opportunities of the digital age be used to expand the availablity of
silent films in our culture? It's happening with text -- there's got to
be a way for it to happen with silent films.
Bruce Calvert
Here's another scenario that nobody has considered yet.
Let's say that you acquire a Kino/Milestone/David Shepard/Flicker Alley DVD.
You strip out the music and any newly created titles so that you believe
that you are not infringing on anybody's copyright. So you offer this film
as a DVD or an internet upload. As it happens, the DVD distributor realizes
that your PD copy was originally made from their copy. They may send you a
"cease and desist" letter, or proceed with a legal action against you. Now
you've got to spend your own money, plus the DVD distributor must do the
same to have lawyers argue this point. This looks like a no-win situation
for both sides.
Personally, I don't think that anyone will become a silent-film fan by
watching a complete silent film on YouTube or GoogleVideos. I short clip
might be legal (under fair use), but who wants to watch such a small blurry
picture for an hour or even twenty minutes. I clip might grab their
attention, but if you look at the "Batting Average" at archive.org, very few
people watch a video the entire way through.
Besides, watching a download on your computer (sitting by yourself at your
desk) is about as far away from the original silent film experience as you
can get.
--
Bruce Calvert
--
Visit the Silent Film Still Archive
http://home.comcast.net/~silentfilm/home.htm
idiotprogrammer
> desk) is about as far away from the original silent film experience as you
> can get.
so is listening to Allen Ginsberg poetry on your mp3 player while
shopping at Walmart. And yet some people do it (like me!)
> Personally, I don't think that anyone will become a silent-film fan by
> watching a complete silent film on YouTube or GoogleVideos. I short clip
> might be legal (under fair use), but who wants to watch such a small blurry
> picture for an hour or even twenty minutes.
I don't really disagree, but film lovers and scholars have already had
to make do with these versions for several decades already. Should we
dismiss the contributions of such people for this reason?
On Feb 26, 5:17 pm, "Bruce Calvert" <silentfilmxs...@verizon.net>
wrote:
Eric Grayson
<ll...@fabulousnoSPAMwhere.com> wrote:
Bill Gates paid archives all over the world top dollar for the right to
scan stuff and make it available.
However, I'm not even being offered enough $$ to pay the bill for my
dehumidifier bill.
Derek Gee
> A leader in the home video industry emailed me some adivise on my venture
> into home video
>
>
> "My opinion about DVD is that it will continue to be a good niche product
> but it will eventually
> fade away. Customers have shown that their are two markets. One is the High
> quality
> market for home theaters where DVD has typically been and will be replaced
> with HD
> formats. The other market is just getting started and that is the lower
> quality but easily
> accesable media over the web. A lesson can be learned from the music market.
> People will
> settle for lower quality if it is easy to copy and distribute. We will
> definetly see this patern
> repeated in video/film. High quality will be the smaller but relevant market
> and lower quality
> will be king because of simplicity and portability. "
>
I'm not sure what qualifies this "leader" as some sort of Nostradamus,
but for starters, the current DVD isn't leaving anytime soon. The HD
formats (which are STILL DVD's by the way) are stagnating because there
isn't one common format and they cost too much. The average viewer
doesn't give a crap about the quality anyway. The main reason the DVD
caught on was it was more convenient than DVD, and just happened to look
better. If it had the same resolution as VHS it still would have sold well.
Broadband distribution of movies won't happen in any volume because it
takes too long to download them, even for free. When I can rent movies
for $2 at the video store, why the heck would I want to spend hours
downloading them? Even buying them as Pay-per-views from the cable
company costs only $4. My time has value, which generally outweighs free.
Another thing, the current Internet is being bogged down with crap.
Notice how everything slows down at Christmas time? Imagine if everyone
was downloading broadband movies as well... The second generation
Internet is currently only available to research institutions, and as
far as I've seen, there are no plans to give the general public access
to it.
Derek
David P. Hayes
news:1172491859.0...@z35g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Ah Time-Warner, don't get me started. First, their music division
> still owns the Happy Birthday song which was written in the 19th
> century. Also, although pre-1976 music doesn't involve copyright law,
> Time-Warner still owns sound recordings from the 19th century
> http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub133/findings.html and prevents
> access to them. I don't find Time/Warner's commitment to the public
> domain particularly admirable.
You say "although pre-1976 music doesn't involve copyright law,". You
should consult a more accurate source of information about copyright law
than you've obviously been using. Have you considered reading the Copyright
Act itself?
"Music" -- in the strict sense of the word -- has been eligible for
copyright in the United States since 1831. (No, that's not a typo. The
second number is an "8".) "Sound recordings" were late in coming to be part
of the Copyright Act, although the entry there was in 1972, not 1976. (This
was in Public Law 92-140, approved October 15, 1971, with an effective date
of February 15, 1972.) However, prior to this, sound recordings were
protected by state laws.
"Happy Birthday" has a 1935 copyright, and the lryics apparently don't date
from much earlier than that. There is the matter of similarity between the
melodies of the 1935 song and the earlier song "Good Morning to You" (1893),
thus prompting the question of whether there is sufficient grounds for there
to remain a valid copyright in the melody copyrighted in 1935. (I have some
documentation on this that will be shared online in the near future, but it
needn't be brought up here.) If you don't see how this addresses the
subject in the quoted paragraph, please read again all of the preceding.
Please take note that the copyrights discussed concern registrations of
"music" (in the sense of sheet music), whereas "idiotprammer" writes
"Time-Warner still owns sound recordings from the 19th century". A sound
recording is not necessarily music, and music is not necessarily sound
recordings. Music can be put into tangible form by means of sheet music and
by means of sound recordings, but if you merge the two categories in one
mind, you will (as evidenced here) come away believing that copyright law
has been abused when in fact there has been adherence to it.
> (In the software world--which I know fairly well--we have the concept
> of making the raw source code available as a way to encourage others
> to build upon previous efforts and enhance the value of the project
> for the community. ...).
I have made code bare for others to see, too. In writing JavaScript, I have
always been careful to upload it as ASCII rather than encrypted specifically
so that others can see how an effect is created. That being said, there is
a balance, and some of my online creative work and data collections are
specifically made "walled off" so that would-be copycats are made to expend
more effort to navigate disjoined code than they would find worthwhile.
It's up to me what I want to let others build on (difficult solutions that I
won't do anything further with and which another intelligent programmer
could solve readily enough) and what would be sundered by indiscriminate
copying (data that would be merely reproduced verbatim or which would be
denatured by unknowing chopping). The benefits are often on the side of
free exposure of code -- if the attention that I bring to my abilities helps
me in the long run. However, that's my choice, not the choice of others.
> Let's talk about distributed labor and collaboration success stories:
> Successes:
> Project Gutenberg
> wikipedia
> SETI
> Human Genome Project.
> Linux (and by implication apache web server, computer languages,
> Firefox web browser, etc).
Linux, etc. (open source software in general) is not entirely a
free-labor/zero-return undertaking. Programmers who contribute to Linux
come to know it so well that they can command significant fees for modifying
and customizing it for particular customers. Yes, Linus is free, and anyone
can take it as it is, or undertake modifications to it oneself if one is
dissatisfied. It is well-known that plenty of customers who have the money
to pay for modifications, WILL pay for modifications, and even be happy that
the total cost of Linux after modification is still less than the
alternative, YET it remains the case that programmers give away some effort
to position themselves to have expertise to sell.
Gutenberg is wonderful, yet the volunteers do it because (apparently) they
want to live in a world where the materials contributed are available and
influential.
As for Wikipedia, the last page I saw on them (!) had a header atop: "This
article or section reads like a personal reflection or essay and may require
cleanup. Please help improve this article by rewriting this article or
section in an encyclopedic style. (help, talk)"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canon_of_Sherlock_Holmes) Not everything
there is good.
> Truthfully, I'm a scholar of the public domain, ...
Let's hope that you will show strong signs of that. A good start will be
for you to judge the Copyright Act on the basis of what it says and be
skeptical in the future of second-hand accounts that don't gel with the
statutes themselves.
--
David Hayes
Remove director name from address when responding privately.
mikeg...@gmail.com
could play the Happy Birthday tune because it was basically "Good
Morning To You," and thus PD, but we couldn't sing the words with it
(or say them in close proximity to the tune) because then it became
"Happy Birthday To You."