How to tell what's public domain?

[FTAListCom]

Got a newbie question here, but I did try to search for it first, so please be gentle.

In your discussions of some of those big buckets o' toons DVD sets, I detect a certain winking reference to some cartoons that are on the sets that aren't really public domain, which begs my question. Is there a compiled list or other good way to tell which old cartoons are PD and which ones aren't?

[Keith Paynter]

There was, for the longest time, a website listing all WB PD cartoons. Sadly, it is no more. A great resource.

[Ray Pointer]

Got a newbie question here, but I did try to search for it first, so please be gentle.

In your discussions of some of those big buckets o' toons DVD sets, I detect a certain winking reference to some cartoons that are on the sets that aren't really public domain, which begs my question. Is there a compiled list or other good way to tell which old cartoons are PD and which ones aren't?

This issue seems to come up at least every six months. To really know, you would have to do the reseach of looking up the original registrations, then looking for renewals 28 years after the original copyright restrations. This would pertain to those cartoons produced up to 50. The complication is that beginning in 1978, the first wave of copyright extension laws went into effect which extended the original copyright registrations in perpetuity.

While titles from the 1930s and 1940s that were not renewed have fallen into the Public Domain, Time-Warner has found a means of sustaining the copyrights throught ownership of the properties in their trademarks, literary rights, and music rights. So long as any of these elements contained in the film are still under a standing copyright, the copyright status of the film is sustained. Although several cartoons have been released throught the "bargin video" market, many have been served with a "cease and desist" order from the Time-Warner legal department. And while the PD issue can be argued perpetually, Time-Warner has the power and monetary resources to appeal the case in their favor. This is further backed up by a Supreme Court ruling that the legal owner of a film's negatives is recognized as the owner of the film regardless of Public Domain issue.

For further reading on this topic, you might want to check back on past threads that have explored this topic in great detail.

[ebrand11]

There was, for the longest time, a website listing all WB PD cartoons. Sadly, it is no more. A great resource.
So Lets make one now!! I too am not exactley sure whats pd and whats not, but heres the WB pd cartoons I have seen:
Crowing Pains (1947)
A Corny Concerto
Tale of two Kitties
The Wabbitt Who came to supper
Falling hare
Fresh Hare
All this and Wabbitt Stew
Ding Dong Daddy
Robin Hood Makes Good
Porkys Bear Facts
Ali Baba Bound
A Day at the Zoo
Porkys Cafe
Get Rich Quick Porky
Foney Fables
Porkys Railroad
Daffy the Commando
Joe Glow the Firefly
Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur
Gold Rush Daze
Sports Chumpions
Battling Bosko
Big man from the north
Bosko and honey
Bosko Shipwrecked
The Booze Hangs High
Aint Nature Grand
Confusions of a nutzy spy
The Shanty Where Santa Lives
Case of the missing hare
To Duck or not to duck
the henpecked duck
boom boom'
goopy geer
moonlight for two

[nickramer]

There was, for the longest time, a website listing all WB PD cartoons. Sadly, it is no more. A great resource.
The list still up. It's just that it moved to this site: http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/DVDvideo/PD/

[Marty26]

Daffy Duck And The Dinosaur, in particular, seems to be a very popular cartoon for PD companies. Probably because of the natural fascination a lot of kids have with dinosaurs.

[Geezil]

One thing that's for certain in my experience: Thanks (and this is a good thing overall, mind you!) to the restored Looney Tunes, Popeye, and other such bells-and-whistles DVD collections—and the new legal boundaries that come with them—the pool of certifiably PD cartoons that can be repackaged endlessly, in take-it-as-it-comes quality, by lowball DVD companies is shrinking rapidly. So, there's a darned good reason why the Mill Creek 600-toon collection is totally empty of WB titles!

(That's not to mention the long rounds of soul-searching among the P.U.P. Toons© team, a couple of years back, as regarded the issue of whether to use any of the so-called PD Popeye titles in either episode since completed. I think there are at least a couple of older threads here that explain the reasons why we ultimately moved on from there without eating our spinach—chief among them the copyright status of Popeye's theme song, on which issue Ray Pointer has served as GAC’s resident expert.)

[FTAListCom]

I appreciate all the replies, and particularly that WB PD link.

Please recognize that I had searched the threads for "public domain" ("PD" is too short for searching) before posting the question. It would be very helpful to provide a link or two to the old threads that you're remembering, Ray and Geezil and all of you other friendly, helpful, long-time posters. You're probably thinking that it was that discussion in 2005 when the DigiView Universe collection came out, or some other set of details that I didn't just invent. If you give me a hint, I'd be glad to search. Thanks!

[Geezil]

I appreciate all the replies, and particularly that WB PD link.

Please recognize that I had searched the threads for "public domain" ("PD" is too short for searching) before posting the question. It would be very helpful to provide a link or two to the old threads that you're remembering, Ray and Geezil and all of you other friendly, helpful, long-time posters. You're probably thinking that it was that discussion in 2005 when the DigiView Universe collection came out, or some other set of details that I didn't just invent. If you give me a hint, I'd be glad to search. Thanks!

Happy to help any way I can. And, it took me more than a little while to locate, I'll admit, but here's one (http://forums.goldenagecartoons.com/showthread.php?t=6052&highlight=public+domain)! :D

[Keith Paynter]

The list still up. It's just that it moved to this site: http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/DVDvideo/PD/

Yay! Thanks for the link!

[AnthroCoon]

hmm, just came across a site for a company called crazy4cartoons and they're selling DVDs of some Hanna Barbera, WB, FoxKids, etc.--and saying that they can do so because of something called the "Berne Act" of copyright law: "films unreleased in the United States, including original versions of films altered and/or edited for release in the United States, are NOT protected by American copyright; thus, they are considered public domain"
They even have stuff like Speedy Gonzalez and Pixie and Dixie; hmm; maybe they're
operating from just outside the U.S. or are using slightly altered versions of cartoons...?
Hmm... hmm...

[Ray Pointer]

hmm, just came across a site for a company called crazy4cartoons and they're selling DVDs of some Hanna Barbera, WB, FoxKids, etc.--and saying that they can do so because of something called the "Berne Act" of copyright law: "films unreleased in the United States, including original versions of films altered and/or edited for release in the United States, are NOT protected by American copyright; thus, they are considered public domain"
They even have stuff like Speedy Gonzalez and Pixie and Dixie; hmm; maybe they're
operating from just outside the U.S. or are using slightly altered versions of cartoons...?
Hmm... hmm...


This is not what The Berne Act of 1886 states. As such, the laws of the United States do not conform to it. Here is the link showing the exact wording, which says nothing along the lines of what is described above:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92appii.html .

[raginggoodfella]

I didn't want to start another thread, so I ask my questions here. 1. In a scene from the film BEFORE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD, a cartoon, JERKY TURKEY, plays in the background. I don't know if this a public domain cartoon, but my question is: If a cartoon is in public domain and gets used in film/tv/concert, does the owners of the cartoon's negative, cartoon's images, characters, cartoon's music, gets a royalty? 2. I remember at a 1987 music concert, the group showed the Popeye's Sinbad short for the "opening act." Did this group have to pay a royalty/fee to show this cartoon even if they obtained a public domain print?

[Ray Pointer]

I didn't want to start another thread, so I ask my questions here. 1. In a scene from the film BEFORE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD, a cartoon, JERKY TURKEY, plays in the background. I don't know if this a public domain cartoon, but my question is: If a cartoon is in public domain and gets used in film/tv/concert, does the owners of the cartoon's negative, cartoon's images, characters, cartoon's music, gets a royalty? 2. I remember at a 1987 music concert, the group showed the Popeye's Sinbad short for the "opening act." Did this group have to pay a royalty/fee to show this cartoon even if they obtained a public domain print?

The fact that these were Public Domain cartoons was precisely why they were used. Accordingly, no licensing fees were paid because of this. IN the case of a scene from JERKY TURKEY, many times the concept of "Fair Use" can enter. Similar things have happened with commericials, which have high enough bugets to pay clip licenses. But if the film is "understood" to be PD, they use it, many times just the picture without the soundtrack. While it is the visual aspect that might be of interest while creating a montage, some PD films have underlying soundtrack elements such as the music that is under sustained copyrights.

At the time SINDBAD was being used, the rights and ownership were still in limbo, and the issues of underlying music rights were not considered by the then owners, which I believe was Turner Communications. Those rights including the Master soundtrack rights still are owned by Paramount.
But Paramount has so much older material that with each change of ownership and administration, the knowledge of its properties has continued to be obscured. Now that Time-Warner has an awareness of ownership of the cartoon, they may not be as lax about the Public Performance Rights as had been the case in the past. While they know that it is basically in the Public Domain, they have an investment in its restoration which they have a right to capitalize on.