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Public Domain Movies
- daviddavis 7y agoNo ‘Night of the Living Dead’?
- zakki 7y agohttp://publicdomainflix.com/night-of-the-living-dead-1968_bfdc139c4.html http://publicdomainflix.com/night-of-the-living-dead-1968_bf...
- jerf 7y agoI was wondering how that can be public domain. So to save others some searching: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2016/10/25/why-night-of-the-living-dead-is-public-domain/ https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2016/10/25/why-night-of-the-... The short answer is, they forgot to put the copyright notice on it, and at the time, that made it public domain.
- bredren 7y agoYes, 8 years later this law “bug” was patched. Nice vid on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI1kqlt4vkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI1kqlt4vkA
- zik 7y agoWeird. I would have thought that it would be copyright by default under the Berne copyright convention of 1886. Ah, after further research I see that the US only joined the convention in 1988.
- Angostura 7y agoProbably explains why in the latest season of Stranger Things, the characters got to the flix and watch that particular film.
- pmontra 7y agoThey also have The Last Man On Earth (1964) http://publicdomainflix.com/mobile/the-last-man-on-earth-1964_a71c469fb.html http://publicdomainflix.com/mobile/the-last-man-on-earth-196... It's the first movie adaptation of Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend." It was filmed in the suburbs of Rome, Italy.
- notus 7y agoDid you not search?
- mysterydip 7y agoGot a couple PHP warnings on the site (mobile version at any rate), might want to clean those up or adjust your php.ini to a "production" level where those go to a log rather than the page. Otherwise, I like it! Will pass it along.
- ehsankia 7y agoHow do they pay for the hosting? Is it purely donation based?
- zakki 7y agolooks like they are a content aggregator. I tried to play some movies and all of them are in youtube.
- Jaruzel 7y agoYes, the movies are embedded YouTube, but with their own playback controls overlaid on top, which on my browser (Chrome Version 75.0.3770.90) couldn't be hidden. Right clicking on the movie window and brings up the familiar YouTube menu, where you can copy the original URL. It makes sense: there's no way a one-person operation can afford the bandwidth to stream movies. I am however impressed by the effort the owner goes to to find out the copyright status of each entry.
- metildaa 7y agoPeertube would likely be a good self hosted solution for scaling this, as you end up with a swarm of seeders as content gets more popular, reducing the load on the main server: http://joinpeertube.org/en/ http://joinpeertube.org/en/
- mholt 7y agoHeads up: this site doesn't use HTTPS, so anyone (for some definition of "any") can see what you're watching, and potentially modify it.
- PetahNZ 7y agoI don't know why this is something worth mentioning. If some one can MITM your HTTP requests, they can just as easily MITM your DNS and SNI etc.
- bitslip 7y agoNot sure how genuine you're being, but there's a big difference between someone seeing the domain name of the website I'm visiting (publicdomainflix.com), and seeing my username and password when I register.
- kristopolous 7y agoBoth attacks are equally deterministic and would be instrumented by software which share the property that they only need to be written once. The attacker needs to run either one program or another program (with more sophisticated code but who cares, it's already written). So really it's the same level of effort if you assume someone is just running prebuilt software, which is usually the case
- bitslip 7y agoFor anyone reading this who isn't already familiar, the above is incorrect. When you're browsing with HTTPS, a third party may see: - Your DNS queries (revealing the name of the website you're visiting), - The handshake of your TLS connection, including Server Name Indicating (SNI) (revealing the name of the website you're visiting). - A third party on the network is not however able to see the content of the website you're visiting, or the data you're submitting to the site. When you're browsing with HTTP, a third party may see: - Your DNS queries (same as above) - The name of the website you're visiting (via the host header) - Any and all information sent between you and the website, as well as being able to modify any and all data sent between you and the website.
- iscrewyou 7y agoIt’s a good start and bookmarked but probably needs some kind of language tagging. I browsed around a bit and click one this [0] in the 1970s category... it’s in Hindi. 0 - http://publicdomainflix.com/mobile/the-street-fighter-1974_fd4d4cc20.html http://publicdomainflix.com/mobile/the-street-fighter-1974_f...
- gothroach 7y agoLooks great - like the IA's movie site but with a more consumer UI. Unfortunately, none of the videos are playing for me in Chrome 75. I've tried a few, they all say that the network failed or the format isn't supported. Firefox seems to work, though.
- S4M 7y agoMore websites should fail on Chrome and work just fine on FireFox.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoBeat the Devil https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beat_the_Devil_(1953).webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beat_the_Devil_(1953... doesn't seem to be on there, also search is pretty bad, it doesn't look like you can search by actors - for example neither Jimmy Stewart http://publicdomainflix.com/search.php?keywords=jimmy+stewart&video-id= http://publicdomainflix.com/search.php?keywords=jimmy+stewar... or James Stewart works.
- hanniabu 7y agoYeah, would be nice additional info to search/filter with such as year, language, color or black/white, lead actors, etc. Since this is all a free effort, it could be group sourced via github.
- hanniabu 7y agoIf the author is here, the pages load and everything works, but this error shows on every page: Warning: Use of undefined constant browse_vid - assumed 'browse_vid' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /homepages/5/d229943463/htdocs/publicdomainflix/mobile/category.php on line 32 Using S7 galaxy, stock android, chrome
- hanniabu 7y agoHow does one go about finding movies that are public domain? Would also be nice if the was a form for others to add new additions and a citation link. Not sure if this is available once you register and login, if it is then it'd be nice to not need to login for it.
- shakna 7y ago> How does one go about finding movies that are public domain? With extreme difficulty. There are quite a few lists of films that have fallen out of copyright, or were never registered correctly, but even those often contain elements, like the soundtrack, that may continue to hold copyright. Secondly, what is Public Domain in one nation may well not be in another. I know of several films that are public domain in Australia, that won't reach public domain in America for another fifty-seventy years, and vice versa. Legally speaking, if you're broadcasting for everyone without checking where they live, such as through the registration form, you can and do run up against people willing to litigate you to death over a film made in the 60s that hasn't seen mass broadcast since. Finally, finding out who owns copyright of a work can be extremely difficult. A company can go under or get carved up, and various trademarks and copyrights can be passed around - often to different people, and occasionally, the copyright can be lost in that mess or owned by an entity that no longer exists. It's still not public domain - but nobody knows who should be angry at you if you broadcast.
- abstractbill 7y agoIs there an easy way to donate money toward this work? I would do that in a heartbeat.
- shakna 7y agoThere's only really two organisations I know of who actively try and dig down into this stuff and give it back to the public. (There are a lot who just accept the legal risks and ignore what rules there may be.) The Internet Archive [0], and TorrentFreak[1], with the former being the more active in the area. My own knowledge comes from more selfish, commercial, reasons, in that I've tried to use PD content to kickstart my site's collection. (To be clear: Not affiliated with the parent of this thread in any way shape or form.) If you want to donate - I'd highly recommend the Internet Archive, but they do have an American slant to what they attempt to give back. That is, if it isn't PD in America, then it might not be the best fit for them. [0] https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/ [1] https://torrentfreak.com/ https://torrentfreak.com/
- wishinghand 7y agoI know about the current sad state of the length of copyright, but seeing it on display really drives it home. So few films after 1960. Same issue with books on Gutenberg.
- mycall 7y agoI'm sure there are many unreclaimed works made by dead people who nobody has claimed.
- WCityMike 7y agoI've been trying to get copyrights reverted for my grandmother's works. It's 95 years after the work was created. She passed in the 1990s and yet most still will, without intervention, be copyrighted for decades to come. (US)
- pimmen 7y agoSometimes, it just makes no sense at all. R.E. Howard had no children, no wife, no parents, no siblings and no busines when he took his own life 83 years ago. I think the original Conan books are completely public domain but I know that ”Conan” is under a dicey trademark somehow that people don’t dare mess around with. So, I believe if you write a story about a barbarian from Cimmeria who rescues damsels from snake people you can make all the money you want selling it and keep it yourself. As long as you don’t call it ”Conan”.
- zzo38computer 7y agoSome people will deliberately make their stuff public domain rather than being copyright. My opinion is copyright is bad, so I also will make all of them public domain, too.
- Moxdi 7y agocrazy to think we are watching dead people
- glenvdb 7y agoThis made me realise that by the time my 2 year old son is old enough to watch adult movies, movies from the decade I was born will be entering the public domain.
- quickthrower2 7y agoThat'd be a good idea for an xkcd, similar to these https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1686:_Feel_Old https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1686:_Feel_Old https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1477:_Star_Wars https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1477:_Star_Wars
- snvzz 7y agoNo, they won't. They'll just extend copyright length again. It's routine now. And it's not a good thing.
- oska 7y agoYour comment is an example of corrosive cynicism. And I don't think it's true either. Resistance to further extensions has built since the last extension.
- snvzz 7y agoSure, just take notice that it's a seemingly appropriate response to an excessively optimistic post. What I was trying to express is: No, if we just "leave things be", a copyright extension will happen again.
- blauekapelle 7y agoTo add to this; all of the Soviet films are available on YouTube with good subtitles from an official channel. A really great one is "Ivan vassilievich changes occupation". https://www.youtube.com/user/mosfilm https://www.youtube.com/user/mosfilm
- jimhi 7y agoYou just reminded me what an awesome movie this is
- blauekapelle 7y agoYeah it's one of my favourites. The old Sherlock Holmes are also amazing.
- themodelplumber 7y agoThanks! I really like _Courier_, which last I checked is still on YT with good subtitles. (Also...ahem...I have a weakness for _Moscow to Cassiopeia_ :-))
- Wiles_7 7y agoKin Dza Dza! Is a great SciFi film as well.
- wazoox 7y agoOn youtube it's only available with Russian and Bulgarian subtitles, alas...
- vinniejames 7y agoI literally had the tought to build something like this today. Nice work!
- DanielleMolloy 7y agoI posted this simply because I liked the idea. Maybe someone would like to pick it up and improve it.
- veridies 7y agoThis reminds me of a thought I've had for a long time: it would be great to commission high quality scans of some of these public domain films so that everyone could enjoy some free movies and remix / reedit to their hearts delight. Pretty much all the ones on IA are ripped from DVDs and look pretty terrible. I'd happily donate to such a project; is anyone doing anything like it?
- jacksproit 7y agoThat sounds like a great idea to me!
- mrweasel 7y agoOne project I wish someone would undertake is streaming of 1950-80 Hollywood movies. There are some many great movies made in that period and many of them are slower paced than modern movies. The really good ones are of cause still owned by someone, but it doesn't seem like it would be to expensive to license them, I'm mean they are already paid for and aren't making a ton of money on DVD sales or TV licenses anyway. The tricky part would really be to find the license holders and negotiate bulk licenses. Similarly 1970 - 1990 porno streaming service seems like it should be able to make a little profit.
- nitrogen 7y agoThere's a really good chance the rights owners are the same people who own modern films and wouldn't want to undercut their new productions.
- coredog64 7y agoAmazon Prime includes a bunch of these movies. From the intro, it looks like “Shout Factory” is the entity with the streaming rights. There’s also “Criterion Channel” which has streaming rights for a bunch of Hollywood classics.
- nerdponx 7y agoTurner Classic Movies? When they show a film on TV they also keep it in their streaming category for a week. All you need is a cable subscription (as a friend or parent to use theirs).
- joelthelion 7y agoThis would be a great use case for PeerTube, no?
- Animats 7y agoMost of those are on the Internet Archive.[1] Often in better versions. The Private Snafu cartoons are from some commercial DVD with watermarks. The originals are online from the National Archives, and they're better. A useful project would be to take the MPEG 2 versions from the Internet Archive, apply modern cleanup, scratch removal, frame alignment, and exposure equalization techniques, and put those up. The MPEG 2 versions have no frame to frame compression, which is good for archival purposes. Cleanup technology has improved since most of those were scanned. [1] https://archive.org/details/feature_films https://archive.org/details/feature_films
- DanielleMolloy 7y agoMost people here know that they are on the Internet Archive. I personally don't like their interface, and their wider movie collection [1] is mingled with a lot of other material (TV ads, speedruns and machinima?). The IA is more about creating a complete historical collection than providing an entertainment service. All streaming services currently lack older classics. I like the idea of a dedicated "Netflix for public domain" movies. Maybe someone would like to pick this idea up and improve it (I don't know the dev). The video quality improvement sounds like a good idea already. It would also be good to create versions of silent movies at their original presentation speed [2] (16Hz is probably more accurate than 24Hz). Movies like "The Passion of Joan of Arc" [3] should not be watched at a comical speed. [1] https://archive.org/details/movies https://archive.org/details/movies [2] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSpeedOfSilents https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSpeedOfSilent... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4_KDf4xhU8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4_KDf4xhU8
- shakna 7y ago> I like the idea of a dedicated "Netflix for public domain" movies. It might be a little bit rude to put it here, but that is something I'm working on [0], though with a little bit wider of an approach - I'm actively seeking indie productions as well. [0] sixteenmm.org > It would also be good to create versions of silent movies at their original presentation speed [2] (16Hz is probably more accurate than 24Hz). Most of my focus at the moment is on a restoration tool I'm developing, but this sounds like a great ideas I'll circle back to.
- foobar_ 7y agoI'm working on something similiar. If anyone else is, feel free to ping me!
- lopespm 7y agoBrowsing through the site I stumbled upon the "Why we fight" movie series[1]. Even though it is very biased and seems to have been a propaganda tool, the movies are actually pretty well crafted. The "public domain movies" site does not have the entire series, but you can find them at youtube[2] [1] http://publicdomainflix.com/browse-documentary-videos-1-date.html http://publicdomainflix.com/browse-documentary-videos-1-date... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAsIWfk_z4&list=PLugwVCjzrJsXwAiWBipTE9mTlFQC7H2rU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAsIWfk_z4&list=PLugwVCjzrJ...