Public Domain question

[Tanglewood]

I was thinking using "La Sortie des usines Lumière (Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory)" by the Lumiere Brothers for a project. Though I want to make sure that I'm not infringing on any copyrights. Since this was originally released in 1895 has it entered into public domain or is it still protected by copyright?

 

[WildCowboy]

Yes, works published outside the US prior to July 1, 1909 are in the public domain in the US.

Handy Link

 

[menziep]

Yes, works published outside the US prior to July 1, 1909 are in the public domain in the US.

Handy Link

Beat me to it!

 

[yellow]

WCB, your range of knowledge astounds me somtimes. Kudos.

 

[Tanglewood]

Yes, works published outside the US prior to July 1, 1909 are in the public domain in the US.

Handy Link

Thank you very much.

 

[theWholeTruth]

HOld on there a second. What type of project? even though the US copyright and public domain rules appears to allow you to use lumiere's film, it's not that simple.

depending on where you borrow the footage from, you would have to obtain rights from that source. do you follow? if you can find a version that exists in public domain, then you should be fine. on a doc i edited, we used some old h'wood silent footage from the late 1800's. cpb had to claim fair use in order for it to be cleared.

if this is a school project, then i wouldn't worry about it...

 

[Tanglewood]

okay, thanks theWholeTruth for the added info. I don't have a copy of Lumiere's film right now so I'll definitely keep this in mind.

 

[clayj]

HOld on there a second. What type of project? even though the US copyright and public domain rules appears to allow you to use lumiere's film, it's not that simple.

depending on where you borrow the footage from, you would have to obtain rights from that source. do you follow? if you can find a version that exists in public domain, then you should be fine. on a doc i edited, we used some old h'wood silent footage from the late 1800's. cpb had to claim fair use in order for it to be cleared.

if this is a school project, then i wouldn't worry about it...

Since the footage you mentioned was published IN the US, it doesn't meet Cowboy's definition of what's automatically public domain. Lumiere's footage would be from France and before 1909, hence public domain.

 

[iMeowbot]

depending on where you borrow the footage from, you would have to obtain rights from that source. do you follow? if you can find a version that exists in public domain, then you should be fine. on a doc i edited, we used some old h'wood silent footage from the late 1800's. cpb had to claim fair use in order for it to be cleared.

Bridgeman v. Corel really put the damper on the idea that archives and museum print services could claim copyright in their sourcing of public domain works. This wasn't great news for the restoration and preservation industries, but such is life.

 

[theWholeTruth]

Since the footage you mentioned was published IN the US, it doesn't meet Cowboy's definition of what's automatically public domain. Lumiere's footage would be from France and before 1909, hence public domain.

Not necessarily. If the footage is taken from a source distributed by a US company, then usage rights differ. It's an extremely complicated process which is why on any doc I have edited for national broadcast, the producers have always let CPB deal with those issues. In some cases, we had to pull material because we could not secure rights, they were too expensive, or we could not find footage that existed in public domain.