Film poster for the 1951 Western, "'Vengeance Valley", Public Domain due to MGM's failure to renew copyright protection in 1979. This poster is in the Public Domain as well because it was published without a copyright notice.

Hi, I just bought your ebook on public domain etc.

 

I’m trying to find out what the situation is with reproducing B-movie posters onto t-shirts. I know through research that a lot of AIP properties were bought up by MGM/Fox, but there are so many smaller titles, as well as foreign based movies that there is definitely a market for it, but how do I find out about what is and isn’t in the public domain?

hope you can help

thanks
Rich

l
On the subject of Public Domain films, we wrote a post a while back that you may find interesting…

When A Film Is In The Public Domain, Is The Screenplay In The Public Domain Too?

We’ve also dedicated a whole issue of Public Domain Treasure Hunter Magazine to a unique twist on using Public Domain films to create spin-off products…

“How To Take An Old Public Domain Movie And Turn It Into An Underground Cult Classic Smash Hit!”

The copyright durations and guidelines for films produced in the U.S. are roughly the same as other works of intellectual property…

Copyright Durations For U.S. Films:

In a nutshell…

• Films published in the U.S. before 1923 are in the Public Domain.
• Films published between 1923 and 1963 are in the Public Domain if not promptly renewed for copyright protection 28 years after initial publication. Hunting for renewals (or more specifically, the lack thereof) for films published after 1950 is a relatively easy task as you’ll find these records located in U.S. Copyright Office database. Renewal research for films published in the U.S. between 1923 – 1950 is challenging as these records are not online in any satisfactory capacity.
• A film could also be in the Public Domain if it was not registered with the Library of Congress upon creation or due to failure to apply a proper copyright notice to the film itself – “Night of the Living Dead” and “McLintock” are popular examples of films that fell immediately into the Public Domain because they were published without copyright notices.
• Films published in the U.S. before 1978 without a valid copyright notice are in the Public Domain as well.

Obviously, researching the copyright status of films can be time consuming and requires the right skillset (unless you hire a copyright attorney or the U.S. Copyright Office to perform the research for you) but here’s a huge headstart:

Wikipedia keeps a running reference list of films verified to be in the Public Domain…

Click here to see Wikipedia’s “List of Films in the Public Domain”…

The absolute hands down best resource I ever seen for Public Domain films is the “Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain” is a 3 volume series of film copyright reference books created by attorney Walter Hurst (1930-1991).

You can still find copies of the “Film Superlist” for a pretty penny…

Click Here to find the “Film Superlist” on Amazon…

Four Great Sites For Film Research:

(databases, downloads, and physical copies):

The Complete Index To World Film Since 1895 ~ “contains information on over 461,000 films produced in most countries of the world between 1888 and 2010. In addition, there are over half a million references to books and journals and virtually all of these publications are held in our library.”

The Internet Movie Database ~ “The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information related to movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, video games, and most recently, fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. IMDb launched on October 17, 1990, and in 1998 was acquired by Amazon.com.”

Wikipedia ~ “a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project based on an openly-editable model”. You may be surprised how much relevant information you can dig up here about old films.

Public Domain Torrents ~ a large site consisting of tons of films believed to be in the Public Domain.

Festival Films ~ “Selling public domain films since 1976, Festival Films offers the largest selection in the world. This is quite a promise, but we continue to research, search, find and restore EVERY FILM possible that is in the public domain.”

You’re question specifically addressed Public Domain film posters so let’s talk about that a little…

Film posters and lobby cards are (were) generally protected by copyright just like any other creative work.

Just because a film is in the Public Domain doesn’t always mean that posters advertising it are in the Public Domain as well (although you’ll find that is often the case).

It is completely possible that a film poster could be registered for copyright protection as a work of art unto itself – and quite frankly, the vast majority of film posters from the era we’re interested in (1923-1963) are works of art unto themselves!

Typically, as “works for hire”, it’s the production company that holds the copyright for artwork in film posters (although there are exceptions).

So, in a another nutshell (we have lots of nuts around here for some reason)…

Copyright Durations For U.S. Film Posters:

• Film posters and lobby cards published in the U.S. before 1923 are in the Public Domain.
• Films posters and lobby cards published between 1923 and 1963 are in the Public Domain if not promptly renewed for copyright protection 28 years after initial publication.
• Film posters and lobby cards published in the U.S. before 1978 without a valid copyright notice are in the Public Domain as well.

The good news is that you’ll find a ton of film posters without copyright notices of any sort.

Film Poster Research Sites:

Here’s a few good research sites for gathering info about film posters (and of course purchasing in some cases)…

Learn About Movie Posters (LAMP) ~ “We’re here  to try to document and cross reference everything associated with film posters world wide. We have the largest cross-referenced  archive on the internet and membership for advanced research.”

The Movie Poster Database ~ “The main purpose of the MoviePosterDB.com website is to provide a database with movie posters that is as complete as possible. All movie posters are free to download as a 300 pixels wide jpeg file.”

MoviePoster.com ~ Lots of vintage movie posters to browse through and purchase.

FilmPosters.com ~ “This web site contains only authentic, original, genuine movie memorabilia. We stock over 10,000 original vintage hollywood film posters and lobby cards from the 1920s to the present. These are real theater-used advertising materials printed in very limited quantities and displayed when the film was released. We do not sell reproductions of any kind.”

Festival Films Movie Posters of Films in the Public Domain ~ “The reproduction posters on this page are one-sheets reduced in size to 11″x17″ — all for films which are in the public domain in the USA.”

Wikipedia is great for film poster research as well since many times searching for a film here will also fetch an low-res image of an accompanying poster as well so you can see what it looked like.

When taking into account the copyright status of posters for films produced outside of the U.S., you’ll need to review the copyright laws of the specific country in which the poster was created.

Posters produced in some countries are easier to make a determination on than others.

For instance, film posters from Japan are really easy due to the fact that there’s no “life of author plus 70 years” stuff when it comes to works produced by commercial organizations. Works in names of organizations in Japan expire in 50 years after the publication.

This is why the film poster below for Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” is in the Public Domain (even though the actual film is still under copyright protection in the U.S. because the film’s distributor registered it with the Library of Congress in 1954)…

Film poster for Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" (1954), Public Domain as copyright on works by organizations in Japan expires 50 years after publication.

Rich, I hope this little run through helps you in some small way.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks again for the interesting question!

About The Author:

Logan Andrew is an online entrepreneur, information publisher, and author that has been using Public Domain material to create profitable products and businesses since 2001. He is also co-author of "The Public Domain Treasure Hunter's Survival Kit" available here. For more info Logan, click here.

[print_link]

Recommended Reading: