Who owns the copyright in this film?
The DVD artwork says Copyright to MK2, Lobster Films and Film Preservation Associates...?
shareLast I heard was it was in the Public Domain. I wonder if somebody has bothered to make a decent print of it.
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MovieChat Forums > The General (1927) Discussion > Who owns the copyright in this film?
They own the soundtrack. I don't completely know the rules on getting public domain films on DVD, but I'm pretty sure they still have to pay certain estates for the rights to show certain actors.
So "public domain" basically means that anyone has the right to do with the film as they please, but any alterations (such as a DVD release) means it's a completely new piece of intellectual property. The film itself is reduced to "depictions", so the DVD has to go through the legal issues of "rights" in order to show them.
I don't think this applies to public projections.
The DVD artwork says Copyright to MK2, Lobster Films and Film Preservation Associates...?
In this case, it means the DVD itself (and/or the sound track) is copyrighted. It does not mean the images comprising "The General" are copyrighted. In practice it means you should not copy or distribute the DVD or sell access to a viewing of it (or in many cases even present a free public viewing of it). It does not however imply "The General" is not in the 'public domain'.
There are a gazillion different DVDs -with different sound tracks- of varying quality. share