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Comment by abootstrapper | Hacker News Reader

If he stole it, how does he have the right to sell it?

he wouldn't. but eventually, it'll become part of the public domain. at that point, he could release his "work output" and own the copyright on that. that new work could be sold. i worked with someone that did this very thing of restoring copies of old films and released them on DVD

In the us, unpublished works created before 1978 are copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the author (Sweeden might be different though).

So you might be waiting a long time.

> he could release his "work output" and own the copyright on that

Probably not in the united States, but other countries (i know UK at the very least) this would be true. The united states requires "creative decisions" to grant copyright. Work output by itself doesn't count.

You could still distribute it, you just couldn't copyright it.

Just putting the film up on a telecine and transferring it requires creative decisions, so I'm not really sure what you're on about. You're commenting like you know what you're talking about, but you clearly are not familiar with the process. This is something I've absolutely worked on projects to do this very thing. When scanning a film print/negative, there are many decisions to be made that would make yours different than the originals. How far do you zoom in/out on each frame. Does it need pan&scan. Was it shot 4:3, but now you're transferring it to 16:9?? The color decisions will also be unique. Was it B&W, the same applies to the grade. Were there film scratches, dirt, etc that you've now removed/restored? Every single one of these decisions is a creative decisions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel... is what i'm "on about".

While all those decisions may feel creative to you, its highly questionable whether they are "creative" according to the law (in usa anyways)

Can't he just add an introduction where he speaks about it, this making the whole work copyrighted? Seems to work for people printing ancient texts.

The case of It's a Wonderful Life has shown that specific parts of a movie can be in the public domain while other parts aren't, even down to the music within a public domain scene.

For the dreaded special editions of Star Wars, only Jabba's stupid face or the specific shot of the Death Star exploding with that ugly-looking ring would have a copyright of 1997. The original scenes cleaned and restored would still have a copyright of 1977.

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