Re: It's A Wonderful Life: Copyright status

According to

http://www.public.asu.edu/~dkarjala/publicdomain/Williams12-22-99.html

"Its a Wonderful Life" fell into the public domain in 1975 but the owner of the original print managed to reassert rights by arguing that the movie soundtrack was still under copyright. The article points out the irony that the films current popularity is due to its time in the public domain.

Its not clear to me whether the soundtrack in this case refers to the films music or all sound in the movie. Can anyone clarify this?

alan

acohen wrote:

> I recall reading that the copyright on the film "It's A Wonderful Life" had
> expired due to failure to renew. But I also recall reading that somehow
> the copyright in the screenplay or some other part of the film had not
> expired and that as a result, under cases such as Stewart v Abend, the film
> in effect is no longer freely available. Does anyone have any sources for
> this? Did I dream it, a la George Bailey in the film? I know that at one
> time the movie was broadcast on multiple stations, but that now only one
> network has the rights. I just don't recall how that evolved.
>
> Thanks!

_
Alan Bushnell <akb[_at_]cptech.org>, Policy Intern Consumer Project on Technology / http://www.cptech.org PO Box 19367, Washington DC 20036
phone: 1(202)387-8030
fax: 1(202)234-5176 Received on Thu Oct 19 2000 - 14:10:45 GMT