Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: charging for public domain

This is topic charging for public domain in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Philip Wittlief (Member # 1724) on 05-02-2005, 06:00 PM:

Is it fine to charge for showing a public domain movie?

Posted by Justin West (Member # 920) on 05-02-2005, 06:17 PM:

I am not a legal expert but this may be relative: when "It's a Wonderful Life" was considered "public domain" there were endless TV stations or networks airing it...and they certainly ran PAID commercials with it...so, in other words, they charged for the ad time they ran during the show, so I don't see why you couldn't attempt to do the same (in a way).

Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 05-03-2005, 12:59 PM:

The whole concept of "public domain" is just that, we all now own the rights of the original product if the copyright has elapsed. You don't need to contact the rights holders of "Macbeth" or Beethoven's 9th symphony if you want to stage them, because they are in the public domain. But the source material you may be using to stage them may have been copyrighted as you've got to get the play and the score from somewhere.

And you can't commercially show Polanski's "Macbeth" or score your film with Beethoven's 9th done by the Boston Philharmonic unless you ask their permission. There are some films in the public domain whose soundtracks are not. There are even PD films with clips of films or a TV show in a scene that are not PD.

Until recently (the late '80's or early '90's I think) trailers were not copyright protected at all.

So if you have a film that is PD you don't have to pay for the right to play it and you can charge whatever the market will pay.