RE: It's A Wonderful Life: Copyright status

There's no basis for saying that no film would ever become p.d. because every film has copyrighted music. Music copyrights expire under the same rules as movie copyrights. It just so happens that in the case of "It's a Wonderful Life" the two got out of synch because (a) they had separate ownership, and (b) both of those copyrights were under the 1909 copyright act, which required both registration and renewal in order to keep works protected by copyright. Under the law now in effect, the copyright in a motion picture would expire 90 years after its first publication (since movies are generally created by production entities, which become institutional owners of copyright), while the copyright in the music, if not owned by the production entity as a work made for hire, would expire 70 years after the death of the composer. Thus in some cases the music would become p.d. before the film; in others the film would become p.d. before the music; and in work made for hire cases, the film and the music would become p.d. at the same time. I don't see a corporate plot in any of these scenarios.

Robert C. Cumbow
 Graham & Dunn PC
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-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Joseph [mailto:sabucat[_at_]sabucat.com] Sent: Friday, October 20, 2000 5:36 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: It's A Wonderful Life: Copyright status

This is true. They (Republic/Paramount) also claim story rights.

Some have problems with this...

1. The story was originally a non copyrighted Xmas card sent out by Frank Capra.
2. I don't see why one can't use the music _in the context of the film_ without a problem. (I agree you could not use the music outside of the film, in some other film, for example). Under Republic's logic, virtually NO film (since just about every film has copyrighted music) would be in the public domain.

I think the "It's a Wonderful Life" case is more a case of a big corporate entity saying "We own it". And, really, who's going to fight them? But it sure feels wrong...

Comments, please?

Jeff

At 09:37 AM 10/19/00 -0400, you wrote:
>If I recall (and do not rely on this because I have not verified this),
>control over the reproduction of the film was resuscitated because the
>copyright in the music in the soundtrack had not expired. You can't show
>the movie without the music, and you can't reproduce the music without
>permission.
>
>-David
>

Jeff Joseph
SabuCat Productions
E-mail: sabucat[_at_]sabucat.com
http://www.sabucat.com

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