Rob Kozlowski's blog on Chaplin and public domain films

[silentfilm]

http://robkozlowski.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... ay_30.html

[WaverBoy]

Interesting that he undermines his argument against copyright extensions with

When a film is in public domain, any old fool can get his hand on a print, slap on a public domain music soundtrack and release it to DVD. This is the case with the twelve comic masterpieces that Charlie Chaplin produced at Mutual Studios in 1916 and 1917. Buyer beware! These films are available from all kinds of nefarious dealers for a couple of bucks, and while that seems like a bargain, the prints are never restored and the musical accompaniment doesn't match what's going on the screen at all.

He also singles out Warner for ignoring its silent film catalog, but at least they've put out a few of them, unlike Paramount.

I don't know if public domain status is the answer to getting nice home video prints of silent films when the studios who own the best elements would likely never allow them to be used by others if they didn't want to put the titles out themselves.

[Richard M Roberts]

Interesting that he undermines his argument against copyright extensions with

When a film is in public domain, any old fool can get his hand on a print, slap on a public domain music soundtrack and release it to DVD. This is the case with the twelve comic masterpieces that Charlie Chaplin produced at Mutual Studios in 1916 and 1917. Buyer beware! These films are available from all kinds of nefarious dealers for a couple of bucks, and while that seems like a bargain, the prints are never restored and the musical accompaniment doesn't match what's going on the screen at all.

I don't think that undermines the arguement at all. This is the exact reason why there is hope that someday someone else may make a brand new DVD release of the Chaplin Mutuals with good material and CORRECT projection speed, making these films comedies again and not slo-mo museum pieces.

He also singles out Warner for ignoring its silent film catalog, but at least they've put out a few of them, unlike Paramount.

I don't know if public domain status is the answer to getting nice home video prints of silent films when the studios who own the best elements would likely never allow them to be used by others if they didn't want to put the titles out themselves.

I know the answer, and the answer is that if the Arbuckle films were still under copyright, the Langdon Sennett shorts were still under copyright, the films on INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH KEATON were still under copyright, even if a number of the films that Blackhawk and Kino and Milestone and Mr. Sheperd have put out over the years were still under copyright, that fact would have likely caused some impediment to those films being released on DVD. For every "bootleg" video release (to use Phil Hall's misuse of the term) with less-than-pristine material and needle-drop scores there are a large number of lovingly produced releases that have been possible only because the films were in the public domain. And certainly the good little companies like Grapevine and Unknown Video would also not have been able to do anything.

Sonny Bono basically made it possible for Corporate entities to steal from us, the public, taking away so many things that we love and cherish far more than their owners do. If he had failed, all silent films would belong to us now, the public, who would indeed cherish them as much as we cherish and perpetuate things like the works of Charles Dickens, or Edgar Allen Poe, or all the other great works that have belonged to us for so long. He is far from the only one of so many of our recent representatives that have enabled corporations to steal from us, but his is indeed a very hateful crime. I spit on his grave.

And when I hear idiots like Phil Hall dissing the concept of the public domain, I realize just how out of reality we have become, having been lied to for so long, that we've become convinced that it's great to be lied to and swindled, we roll over and beg them to take away more freedom, and property, and money. We get what we deserve, and in the case of what has come out on DVD over the last decade, far more than we deserve, thanks to what's left of the public domain.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Harlett O'Dowd]

I know the answer, and the answer is that if the Arbuckle films were still under copyright, the Langdon Sennett shorts were still under copyright, the films on INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH KEATON were still under copyright, even if a number of the films that Blackhawk and Kino and Milestone and Mr. Sheperd have put out over the years were still under copyright, that fact would have likely caused some impediment to those films being released on DVD. For every "bootleg" video release (to use Phil Hall's misuse of the term) with less-than-pristine material and needle-drop scores there are a large number of lovingly produced releases that have been possible only because the films were in the public domain. And certainly the good little companies like Grapevine and Unknown Video would also not have been able to do anything.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

I could stomach the copyright extension if it had some teeth in it requiring the owners to use it or lose it. Let Disney keep the mouse. They keep good care of their product, dust it off and let us see *just about* everything every seven years or so.

But for every Disney you get Paramounts and Foxes and everyone else who sit on what they have AND refuse to let the Shepards of the world perform the labors of love that allow us to access what we have today.

Thanks, Sonny

(note to self - Republicans named Sonny should be forever barred from public office)

your Atlanta Harlett