Re: Hoppity Hooper now on DVD


"Ted" <nospamforted@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:46350CB1.F60E20BC@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


Chris Sobieniak wrote:

On Apr 29, 10:30 am, Ted <nospamfor...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Patrick Joseph Mc Namara wrote:
snip> From the EW titles I've seen and a few I've picked up, they do
seem to be
scouring the PD market. However, I'm not sure if they are completely
familiar with what is PD or not. I picked up a EW copy of Rankin
Bass' "The
Hobbit" for a dollar though I know Warner Bros. has also released it.

snip

While I can't see how RB's the Hobbit could be public domain, just
because a big company releases something doesn't make the underlying
material not PD. Several PD WB cartoons have had official releases,
Disney's release of silent Alices (at least some of them) are PD, and
the forthcoming Popeye release won't make the PD cartoons in it any
less PD.

Of course a lot of made-for-tv movies of the 70's and 80's are popping
up on these PD releases as well, but I would think "The Hobbit" in
particular would still be copyrighted somewhat.

Abandonment of materials made after 1964 (I think; I know it's on the
'60s sometime) doesn't make things public domain in the US (there was a
change in the law that did away with re-registration after the initial
copyright period). That would make those later materials probably fall
in the realm of "I hope the rights holders are unaware of their
rights/don't care if we make these/unable to maintain litigation" DVDs
(or IHTRHAUOTR/DCIWMT/UTML for short). I don't see how anyone could
expect the Hobbit to fall into that category tho. Maybe someone got a
super cheap rights clearance; like the rights holder's time was almost
up, their contract allowed for sub-licensing it out, their sales
wouldn't be affected, so they let the $1 dvd sellers use it for some
minimal sum.

I bought my copy in Canada, and it often happens that something may be PD in
Canada while still being copyrighted in the US. There are also times when
nobody knows who owns the rights. In the case of The Hobbit, the animation
was done in Japan, so the rights get really confusing. It is possible for a
rights holder to die without an heir, in which case rights can go PD. I
suspect the Hobbit may have gone PD because nobody realized it had.

While copyright may be renewed automatically, it has to have someone to own
it. If RB was the owner but dissolved, it's possible that since there is
nobody to claim copyright it passed into PD. If however RB had been bought
out, the new owners would automatically get the copyright. RB ended some
time back before intellectual property was considered so valuable. It's a
special case. Nowadays somebody would want to buy up their library.


.

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  • Re: Hoppity Hooper now on DVD
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