3 ms·

Surprised the article didn’t mention what for me (as a horror fan) was the most famous example of the public domain immediately benefiting the culture. Due to r

Surprised the article didn’t mention what for me (as a horror fan) was the most famous example of the public domain immediately benefiting the culture. Due to repeated edits requested by a demanding distributor, the final cut of Night of the Living Dead was released without a copyright notice. In 1968, unfortunately, this meant the work automatically went into the public domain. The film’s subsequent unexpected success led to zombies becoming a pop-culture phenomenon, but perhaps at George Romero’s expense.

zinekeller 3y ago
> unfortunately, this meant the work automatically went into the public domain To clarify, only in the US (and a few others not following the Berne convention). Night of the Living Dead is still in copyright for 95%-ish of the world (unlike some people insisting that "It's Public Domain worldwide." because sadly that doesn't how copyright works.) This is of course more complicated (rule of shorter term may be applied here but that's a can of worms), but generally US copyright regime was weird (and still kind of is since that other countries do have a separate moral and economic rights).
- deleted 3y ago
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skrebbel 3y ago
I’m confused that not adding a copyright notice automatically donates something to the public domain. This is not how I learned copyright works. I always believed that you own the copyright to everything you produce unless explicitly noted otherwise. A sister comment suggests that this was some feature (bug?) of US copyright law at the time, can anyone elaborate?
- valleyer 3y ago
  Automatic application of copyright law to creative works came about in the U.S. after it became a signatory to the Berne Convention, in 1988. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementation_Act_of_1988 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementatio...
  - tzs 3y ago
    Nit-pick: automatic copyright came about in the US via the Copyright Act of 1976, which came into force in 1978. The Berne Implementation Act of 1988 finished the job of making the US compatible [1] with Berne that the 1976 Act started. [1] There is an argument to be made that US copyright law still isn't compatible with Berne, but the rest of the world has decided having the US in Berne is important enough that as long as US law is close enough that you can make a hand wavy argument that isn't completely ridiculous everyone lets it slide.
- zinekeller 3y ago
  On the pre-Berne era, you are required to properly affix a copyright notice, but since that Night of the Living Dead was released without one it became outside of US copyright law (and automatically became in public domain). In addition to the belated Berne Convention adaptation, the US also required registration of copyright, and to this day still "prefers" registration. (However the reality is that while modern work is still in copyright regardless of registration status, in case there's a legal suit the possible remedies are severely curtailed if it's not a registered work, so to this day it's still effectively mandatory. This... has been a grumbling of some countries since that Berne convention requires that there should not have formalities, and this seems to retain that formality system.)
  - tzs 3y ago
    > However the reality is that while modern work is still in copyright regardless of registration status, in case there's a legal suit the possible remedies are severely curtailed if it's not a registered work, so to this day it's still effectively mandatory It should be noted that only some of the possible remedies are curtailed. Attorney fees and statutory damages are curtailed, but injunctions and actual damages are not. Also the curtailing is just for infringement before registration. I'm not quite sure what that the implications are for that. For infringement that has stopped by the time you register and sue it seems straightforward--all you might get are actual damages from that infringement and an injunction ordering them to not infringe again. But infringements are usually ongoing, I believe. So what if you just sue for an infringement that happened after you registered? Can you then get attorney fees and statutory damages? If you can, then in the case of ongoing infringement it might not make much difference. Your attorney costs are going to be about the same regardless of whether the case is just dealing with the infringements after registration or is deal with all of the infringements. And statutory damages are per work infringed, not per infringing copy, although I'd expect the amount to be lower if they are only meant for post-registration infringement. The statute that curtails attorney fees and statutory damages pre-registration says it applies to "any infringement of copyright commenced after first publication of the work and before the effective date of its registration [...]". The question then is when does an infringement "commence"? Would ongoing infringement all count as commencing with the first infringement, so it would all be denied attorney fees and statutory damages? There's nothing I noticed in the definitions section of the copyright statute that says what "commence" means. I did find that for purposes of the statute of limitations on bringing a copyright suite, the time is counted from the most recent infringement that is part of an ongoing infringement, and would guess that it has similar meaning elsewhere but law is not always that consistent. > This... has been a grumbling of some countries since that Berne convention requires that there should not have formalities, and this seems to retain that formality system The requirement that you register for suing only applies to infringement of works that are "United States" works. A published work is a "United States" work only if it was first publication was in the US or simultaneous in the US and somewhere else, or if it was first published someplace that is not a party with the US in any international copyright agreement and all the authors are "nationals, domiciliaries, or habitual residents of, or in the case of an audiovisual work legal entities with headquarters in" the US. So, if you are say some author in some random Berne country, publish your work there but not simultaneously here, and then later find someone in the US infringing, you don't have to register to sue here because that would not be a "United States" work. The US argues that this satisfies Berne. Berne is about how you treat works and authors from other countries. It's OK if you treat domestic works and authors worse than foreign works and authors. You do need registration for attorney fees and statutory damages, but I think the argument for that being OK under Berne is that the only remedy Berne requires is the seizure of infringing goods.
deleted 3y ago
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kouru225 3y ago
From what I’ve read and heard, this was actually a major success for George Romero. Night of the Living Dead had made its money back (and more) by the time anyone noticed it was public domain. Once people realized, NotLD got a level of publicity that it would have never gotten if it were copyrighted, which ended up being way more beneficial to Romero. Any theater could show it whenever they didn’t know what else to play and so the movies lifespan extendedly dramatically. Because of all the publicity, NotLD travelled across seas to Europe, and the Europeans reevaluated it as valuable social commentary on race relations in America. If you listen to interviews with Romero on the subject, he was convinced that the public domain is what actually launched his career.

zinekeller 3y ago

> unfortunately, this meant the work automatically went into the public domain To clarify, only in the US (and a few others not following the Berne convention). Night of the Living Dead is still in copyright for 95%-ish of the world (unlike some people insisting that "It's Public Domain worldwide." because sadly that doesn't how copyright works.) This is of course more complicated (rule of shorter term may be applied here but that's a can of worms), but generally US copyright regime was weird (and still kind of is since that other countries do have a separate moral and economic rights).

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

skrebbel 3y ago

I’m confused that not adding a copyright notice automatically donates something to the public domain. This is not how I learned copyright works. I always believed that you own the copyright to everything you produce unless explicitly noted otherwise. A sister comment suggests that this was some feature (bug?) of US copyright law at the time, can anyone elaborate?

valleyer 3y ago
Automatic application of copyright law to creative works came about in the U.S. after it became a signatory to the Berne Convention, in 1988. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementation_Act_of_1988 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_Implementatio...
- tzs 3y ago
  Nit-pick: automatic copyright came about in the US via the Copyright Act of 1976, which came into force in 1978. The Berne Implementation Act of 1988 finished the job of making the US compatible [1] with Berne that the 1976 Act started. [1] There is an argument to be made that US copyright law still isn't compatible with Berne, but the rest of the world has decided having the US in Berne is important enough that as long as US law is close enough that you can make a hand wavy argument that isn't completely ridiculous everyone lets it slide.
zinekeller 3y ago
On the pre-Berne era, you are required to properly affix a copyright notice, but since that Night of the Living Dead was released without one it became outside of US copyright law (and automatically became in public domain). In addition to the belated Berne Convention adaptation, the US also required registration of copyright, and to this day still "prefers" registration. (However the reality is that while modern work is still in copyright regardless of registration status, in case there's a legal suit the possible remedies are severely curtailed if it's not a registered work, so to this day it's still effectively mandatory. This... has been a grumbling of some countries since that Berne convention requires that there should not have formalities, and this seems to retain that formality system.)
- tzs 3y ago
  > However the reality is that while modern work is still in copyright regardless of registration status, in case there's a legal suit the possible remedies are severely curtailed if it's not a registered work, so to this day it's still effectively mandatory It should be noted that only some of the possible remedies are curtailed. Attorney fees and statutory damages are curtailed, but injunctions and actual damages are not. Also the curtailing is just for infringement before registration. I'm not quite sure what that the implications are for that. For infringement that has stopped by the time you register and sue it seems straightforward--all you might get are actual damages from that infringement and an injunction ordering them to not infringe again. But infringements are usually ongoing, I believe. So what if you just sue for an infringement that happened after you registered? Can you then get attorney fees and statutory damages? If you can, then in the case of ongoing infringement it might not make much difference. Your attorney costs are going to be about the same regardless of whether the case is just dealing with the infringements after registration or is deal with all of the infringements. And statutory damages are per work infringed, not per infringing copy, although I'd expect the amount to be lower if they are only meant for post-registration infringement. The statute that curtails attorney fees and statutory damages pre-registration says it applies to "any infringement of copyright commenced after first publication of the work and before the effective date of its registration [...]". The question then is when does an infringement "commence"? Would ongoing infringement all count as commencing with the first infringement, so it would all be denied attorney fees and statutory damages? There's nothing I noticed in the definitions section of the copyright statute that says what "commence" means. I did find that for purposes of the statute of limitations on bringing a copyright suite, the time is counted from the most recent infringement that is part of an ongoing infringement, and would guess that it has similar meaning elsewhere but law is not always that consistent. > This... has been a grumbling of some countries since that Berne convention requires that there should not have formalities, and this seems to retain that formality system The requirement that you register for suing only applies to infringement of works that are "United States" works. A published work is a "United States" work only if it was first publication was in the US or simultaneous in the US and somewhere else, or if it was first published someplace that is not a party with the US in any international copyright agreement and all the authors are "nationals, domiciliaries, or habitual residents of, or in the case of an audiovisual work legal entities with headquarters in" the US. So, if you are say some author in some random Berne country, publish your work there but not simultaneously here, and then later find someone in the US infringing, you don't have to register to sue here because that would not be a "United States" work. The US argues that this satisfies Berne. Berne is about how you treat works and authors from other countries. It's OK if you treat domestic works and authors worse than foreign works and authors. You do need registration for attorney fees and statutory damages, but I think the argument for that being OK under Berne is that the only remedy Berne requires is the seizure of infringing goods.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kouru225 3y ago

From what I’ve read and heard, this was actually a major success for George Romero. Night of the Living Dead had made its money back (and more) by the time anyone noticed it was public domain. Once people realized, NotLD got a level of publicity that it would have never gotten if it were copyrighted, which ended up being way more beneficial to Romero. Any theater could show it whenever they didn’t know what else to play and so the movies lifespan extendedly dramatically. Because of all the publicity, NotLD travelled across seas to Europe, and the Europeans reevaluated it as valuable social commentary on race relations in America. If you listen to interviews with Romero on the subject, he was convinced that the public domain is what actually launched his career.