If you're old enough to remember the early seasons of the Simpsons, you'll probably remember an exchange between Principal Skinner and an unusually exasperated Apu. Here it is in all its glory.
The joke is that Principal Skinner is hopelessly out of touch, both in not being aware of Jurassic Park, (this was in the 90s remember) and thinks the title Billy and the Cloneasaurus, is a good title and that this qualifies as a great American novel.
Apu does an excellent job of bursting Skinner's bubble, it's a terrible idea in direct competition with a financial and cultural juggernaut in its prime. However, at no point in his tirade does Apu cite copyright, that is because you cannot copyright an idea. Despite the existence of Jurassic Park, Skinner is free to write a novel or a script or a comic or any other format he chooses about a futuristic theme park where Dinosaurs are brought back to life through cloning experiments. The concepts of Dinosaurs, theme parks and cloning are all fair game, he would get some opposition if he titled his masterpiece Jurassic Park over trademarking, but that would have to playout in the courts titles and names aren't protected as such which is why there so many films with Exorcist in the title.
If Billy and the Cloneasuarus either got to a stage where it could be published, Skinner would enjoy the experience of trying to find an agent and a publisher, who almost certainly would strong-arm him into changing the title to anything more marketable. The concepts themselves are fair game, anyone can make a movie about an aggressive Alien life form attacking the crew members, Alien knockoffs are quite common, The Raid, and Judge Dredd, both feature a police officer locked inside an apartment complex controlled by a ganglord and have to fight their way to the top, and both are excellent action movies to boot. Both were released without a lengthy and exhausting legal battle between each others owners over IP rights.
So, you might be wondering what exactly does copyright, well copyright. It's the story, the specific story and its combination of concepts, characters and events and the point of view of that author. You make your own story up on the same premise, you're just not allowed to actively copy an existing work and pass it off as your own. So, to take a hypothetical example Billy and the Cloneasaurus, Billy the young protagonist gets to go to a futuristic theme park where Dinosaurs are brought back to life via some bioengineering process, the book ends with Billy befriending the Cloneasaurus and eager for the chance to return to the theme park. That is a unique if not very good story that differs substantially from Jurassic Park. So long as Skinner didn't just copy Crichton's Jurassic Park, and then slap on that title he would face no opposition to publication on that front, he would face plenty of opposition for the reason Apu gave, the title's awful and there isn't a market for it.
The reason I made this post is to clarify a misconception about copyright, as bad as it is, it isn't that Draconian, not yet at least. A common post I see on public domain and creative writing message boards is asking for "free to use versions of X" and while the discussion started by these questions can sometimes bring attention to an underrated character or story It's not necessary, just make up your own version. Public Domain and Creative Commons media are tools to be used, but that doesn't mean you're restricted to them, you can make your own superheroes despite DC and Marvel existing, you can animate talking animals without getting the go-ahead from Disney and whoever owns Warner Brothers now.
Found this collage while searching public domain image databases. It shows two women in a loving embrace, not much detail other than early 1900s which matches with their Edwardian era clothing. I like snapshots like these, together with preserved graffiti they're some of the best evidence we have of social history free of societal pressures and official conformity. A happy lesbian couple in a time that popular culture associates with austere misery.
I saw this while looking through an archive of old newspaper comics. The artist's point, a dim view of Mormonism, is clear, and the detailing makes modern political cartoons look amateurish. Though, it is interesting to see that the practice of over labelling is older than I thought.
Propaganda is a term that has been discredited by its usage in the 20th century by government's around the world, especially dictatorships, so it shouldn't be surprising that talented and experienced artists prefer to work in other less overtly political forms like illustrating character designs for gacha games, and spandex wearing Ubermensch.
Also, a funny coincidence, the official name of Mormonism is the Latter Day Saint's (LDS) which is also the name of one of the most notorious purveyors of copyfraud (in my opinion) services on YouTube. Upload content on that platform and you'll eventually see them pop up in a e-mail about a restriction on your video.
I've been informed of an initiative to promote game preservation in the European Union. I am not an EU subject and I have what can be described charitably as a healthy contempt for representative government.
Nevertheless I think this initiative is worthy of support. Corporations and governments most effective tools for control and expansion are to present themselves and their policies as both normal and inevitable. If you disagree with something before they send the thugs they make you feel small, isolated and strange. So, a show of popular opposition can be very usueful in rally further opposition.
I like games and hate that that the industry is actively hostile to the public almost as much as they are to their employees.
Preservation of art, media knowledge and entertainment is important. If you're in the EU and want to preserve media or just make things uncomfortable for major corporations signing couldn't hurt.
Update: In addition to the 1 million valid signatures requirement each member nation has a set threshold to meet e.g. 9,870 signatures for Denmark. I was under the impression that in order to pass an EU initiative needs all these thresholds met but I'm told it needs 7 to pass though the more nations that meet or surpass that threshold the more impact it will have.
Public Domain and horror movies seem to go hand in hand, one of the most well known pieces of media in the public domain is Romero's Night of the Living Dead, whose status and what it meant for cultural expression have become legendary, Zombies as a concept predate Night but the popularity of Romero's work opened up an entire subgenre.
And Night is not alone, the field of public domain horror is quite crowded. One of the latest entries to fall into the hands of the public is 1979s Driller Killer (DK). The late year of release tells us that this is a case similar to Romero's Night, failure to properly follow the copyright offices requirements. DK is an infamous entry in the slasher killer sub-genre of horror, and was given the honour of being included in the list of "Video-Nasties" in the UK. That designation was supposed to be a mark of shame and drive off consumers from indecent material, but often turned into a mark of fame that increased sales.
Since DK is in the public domain it's very easy to find online, even the wikipedia page includes an upload of the film to view. However, despite or perhaps because of its popularity, DK is occasionally the subject of discussions surrounding the ambiguity of ownership. On trading boards I lurk on it, once in a while someone will pop up asking for confirmation, usually citing a copyright mark on the version they came across.
I do understand where these questions come from, what these questioners are asking for is an authoritative figure to come down and declare one way or another Yes/No. And unfortunately that just isn't how it works, there is no such authority on the planet. The issue is that essentially when you ask if this thing public domain? You're asking for proof of a negative. And how exactly do you do that? It's easy in contrast to prove the opposite, owners go to court to prove their claim.
Even governmental authorities who oversee copyright and intellectual property legislation will not make such a distinction. I've communicated with the UKs copyright office on several matters, and while they are more than happy to answer queries, they repeatedly make clear that they will NOT under any circumstances weigh in on matters regarding specific works. The US Library of Congress has massive archives of material that are in the public domain, but even that material always carries this disclaimer:
The Library of Congress is not aware of any U.S. copyright or other
restrictions in the vast majority of motion pictures in these
collections. Absent any such restrictions, these materials are free to
use and reuse.
In rare cases, copyrighted motion pictures are made available by
special permission to the Library and may be used only for educational
purposes. For example, the Gershwin home movies fall within this
category. Rights assessment is your responsibility. No registration
information exists for some titles, and reproduction of some titles may
be restricted by privacy rights, publicity rights, licensing and
trademarks. Additionally, some works may still be protected by copyright
in the United States or some foreign countries. The written permission
of the copyright owners in materials not in the public domain is
required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items
beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions.
Whenever possible, we provide information that we have about
copyright owners and related matters in the catalog records, finding
aids and other texts that accompany collections. You should consult the
catalog information that accompanies each item for specific information.
This catalog data provides the details known to the Library of Congress
regarding the corresponding item and may assist you in making
independent assessments of the legal status of these items for their
desired uses. You should also consult restrictions associated with
donations to the Library.
Credit Line: Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division.
Bolding mine.
What that says is they don't know but assume that the material they're presenting is no longer under copyright restriction. This is legal cover designed to protect them in case a work is copyrighted, and they've hosted it and the rights holders are angry. And that's the Library of Congress, an institution attached directly to government and with an extensive staff of lawyers and researchers.
So, if we cannot rely on our leaders for clarity who can we trust? Well, we have to trust ourselves. Intellectual Property is confusing and arbitrary, but there are things we can do to give us some idea. For an example I was once contacted by some documentary maker wanting to know if the 1935 British social film Housing Problems was public domain. To which I replied "there is no source, look at the UKs copyright legislation and its criteria for copyright protection". That's what you have to do in general, figure which is its country of origin, look at the copyright laws in place at the time and then look at current copyright laws in existence today and if the work is of foreign origin look at if your country has a provision like the rule of shorter term (whereby foreign works that are public domain in their home countries are also public domain in yours even if they would not be if they were domestic creations). And there you go.
For DK we have plenty of evidence that it is in fact public domain, DK was made and released at a time when US works required proper copyright notices and a registration that conformed to the requirements of the copyright office of the United States of America. Lots of people get this confused and think a c in a circle was all that was required but no, failure to put a correct notice on the work meant the work lost its copyright protection, but you also needed the correct registration, the copyright office can reject registration applications so it's the registration that is the key determiner. To complicate matters, there was an amendment to US copyright law that gave creators five years to retroactively copyright material, so we're looking at the years 1979-1984, if we look on the US copyright offices' database we do find records for copyright registration of the movie Driller Killer.
However, the earliest of these is 1991, and there are multiple entries for that year and when we look at them the names of the registrants include Quigley Down Under and Butley who were VHS distributors, who worked internationally. The time span for registration has expired, and none of those entries are listed as renewals of an older copyright. Here, the years of registration count against the film having a copyright, as does the number of entries by different competing businesses. Generally speaking, when you see multiple competing companies offering the same product, that's an excellent piece of evidence that the work they are selling is out of copyright, if you're wondering why that is, there are too reasons. First, if the product is still in copyright these companies would be purchasing or licensing the IP and the whole point of IP is exclusivity, that's how you make money off a product, no one else is legally allowed to exploit IP you own. It just doesn't make business sense to license a product to then compete in a crowded market. Second, if the product is in copyright, what these companies are doing is illegal, and they've created a strong paper trial to the material steps they've taken in their crime. The man selling pirate DVDs in pub car parks can disappear when the heat turns up, but it's a lot harder to hide bulk orders and shipping of products you're actively advertising that you have.
The above is good practice in general, but for Driller Killer in particular there is even more evidence we can look at. DK is an independent horror movie, now when we see the word independent or indie and the movie in question looks made on a limited budget we often assume It's made by an amateur on a shoestring and who may not have been aware of the legal niceties regarding contracts and rights, but that isn't so with DK. The Director and Driller Killer of Driller Killer is Abel Ferrara, Ferrara has made and released many films before and since DK and is still alive and working today. As far as I am aware, all the other movies in his catalogue are in copyright, if DK belonged to anyone it would be him, and yet there is no evidence that Ferrara has made even an attempt to prove that the film did in fact qualify for copyright, there is no court case nor press releases stating this.
To compare this with another late 70s public domain slip up A Boy and his Dog, Harlan Ellison spent years trying to argue that the film was in fact copyrighted to him, but at no point did he provide any legal proof, and eventually he gave up talking about the film at all. If there is an owner of DKs IP out there, they've been quiet for decades and the onus is on them to prove their claims.
Political poster produced by the German Social Democratic Party, "Give your vote to us! And protect this house!"
I've been playing an addictive game called Social Democracy and Alternative history (SDA), it's a game where you try to stop the rise of Hitler. The game is on Itch.io and can be played in browser here, and my review of the game can be read here. The reason I'm writing about that game on this blog is because in addition to its many plus points as a game, it is an excellent example of what's possible thanks to the public domain.
The game's setting is historical and its "characters" were real people, it also uses artwork and recordings from the period to set the scene and build up the world. This game is one of my favourites for this year, and it would not exist if copyright had an even stronger hold on art than it does currently. It was made by one person using an open source game engine (Dendry Nexus) and materials that are out of copyright, and is released under another the MIT licence. The public domain has a bad reputation, associated with B-movie schlock and amateur efforts, I don't think that's entirely fair, but it is the reputation it has, so I'm happy we also get games like SDA that elevate the concept and show its potential in a more impressive manner.
Music credits:
Choir. English: The Internationale in German. 19XX. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKr4HSPHT8, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Internationale-de.ogg. CC-BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
CNT. A Las Barricadas (Instrumental). 17 June 2014. http://www.cnt.es/, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_las_barricadas_(Instrumental).ogg. CC-BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Columbia Orchester and Mendelssohn. Fruhlingslied. Columbia, 1917. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/78_fruhlingslied_columbia-orchester-mendelssohn_gbia0003448a. Public Domain
“Deutsche Arbeiter-Marseillaise.” Wikipedia, 31 Oct. 2023. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deutsche_Arbeiter-Marseillaise&oldid=1182815568. Public Domain
Erich-Weinert-Ensemble. Workers of Vienna. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/WorkersOfVienna. Accessed 29 Feb. 2024.
Großes Odeon-Orchester. Warszawianka. 5 May 1928. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/WarszawiankaOdeon1928. Public Domain
Kapelle Jais, München. AUF HOHEN BERGEN. Odeon, 1920. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/78_auf-hohen-bergen_kapelle-jais-mnchen_gbia0166297b. Public Domain
Marek Weber and Bruno Granichstaedten. Fräulein, wie kann man nur so treu sein. Parlophon, 1920. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/78_frulein-wie-kann-man-nur-so-treu-sein_marek-weber-bruno-granichstaedten_gbia0290517b. Public Domain
Mitgliedern des Berliner Schubert-Chors mit Blas-Orchester. Marsch Der Eisernen Front. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/front_20210826. Accessed 29 Feb. 2024.
Pauline DOBERT - Alt, Bruno SEIDLER-WINKLER-Orgel. Komm, süsser Tod. Sept. 1923. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/dobert-komm-susser-tod. Public Domain
Peasant Band BAUERN KAPELLE and Sousedska. BEIM FENSTERLN - U OKENEČKA. Columbia, 1923. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/78_beim-fensterln-u-okeneka_peasant-band-bauern-kapelle-sousedska_gbia0483844b. Public Domain
REICHSBANNER-GAU-KAPELLE mit Chor. Wann wir schreiten Seit’ an Seit’. 1928. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/reichsbanner-gau-kapelle-wann-wir-schreiten-seit-an-seit. Public Domain
---. Zur Sonne, zur Freiheit. 1928. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/reichsbanner-gau-kapelle-zur-sonne-zur-freiheit. Public Domain
SIGRID ONEGIN and Schubert. DER LINDENBAUM (The Linden-Tree). Brunswick, 3 Dec. 1923. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/78_der-lindenbaum-the-linden-tree_sigrid-onegin-schubert_gbia0260352b. Public Domain
From The Agitator (L'Agitateur) an Anarchist newspaper published in Marseille on the 13th of March 1892. Merci beaucoup to Constance Bantman for sharing this fragment.
MANIFESTE AN-ARCHISTE
AN-ARCHIE ne signifie pas « DESORDRE» Le mot « ANARCHIE» vient de deaux mots grees: «A» Privatif, dont 1e sans est «Absence de» et «Arke» qui vent dire — AUTORITE.
Done, contrairement a Ia definition que se plaisent a downer tous nos
adversaires, ANARCHIE est synonyme de -- ABSENCE D'AUTORITE-- et non «chaos, bouleversement, desordre».
Anarchist Manifesto
AN-ARCHY does not mean "Chaos", the word "Anarchy" comes from the two Greek words "An" the meaning of which is "Absence of" an "Archy" which means AUTHORITY.
Well,
contrary to the definition that all our adversaries like to use,
ANARCHY us a synonym for - ABSENCE OF AUTHORITY, and not "Chaos, upheaval, disorder".
My
French is very limited and tre rusty, so I appreciated the opportunity
to exercise a little and combine it with my knowledge of Esperanto. It's
said that for over a hundred years, the old communication problem
remains. Usually propaganda is the answer to why do so many people
equate Anarchy, Anarchism etc, to acts of random and violence. It
certainly plays a part, though I am of the opinion the success of this
propaganda is down largely to so many people equating freedom to
violence and vulnerability. Personally I don't have an issue with
equating Anarchy to chaos, but that is because for me chaos is random,
change, experience, it can mean danger but so does authority and
obedience. But, for many that word means violence, danger, threat
exclusively, so I won't argue with the people who ran L'Agitateur.
Tornant de Cuba by Ricard Opisso a Catalan artist. Painted in 1898 this image depicts two veterans of the Spanish American war, tens of thousands of conscripts were discharged and returned to Spain at the Barcelona Quays which is seen in the background. Many of these men were wounded, and malaria sickness was common, the Spanish authorities essentially abandoned these men after Cuba and Philippines and Puerto Rico were lost to the United States.
The treatment of these men contributed to the growing atmosphere of hostility to the Spanish military in Barcelona and the wider Catalan region. I've been told that this defeat sat heavily on Spanish consciousness and that a saying "Más se perdió en la guerra de Cuba" (more was lost in the Cuban war) which means could have been worse.
The conflict between the USA and Spain occurred during the infancy of film and Edison was keen to film recreations of the fighting, if you've seen a documentary on this conflict you've likely seen some of this footage, I certainly have.
Cuban revolutionaries occupy a house and fire on Spanish troops.
The news that Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain was greeted with jubilation and much gnashing of teeth from a certain boardroom. During the celebrations, many shared some of the posters that Disney produced to advertise its first sound cartoon, including the one you see above. Looks like a cheery innocent little fellow doesn't he. If only we'd realised sooner.
This poster has sparked a mini controversy, because it's not a 100% clear whether this poster was produced and released in 1928 or early 1929, and it is in colour and Mickey is wearing gloves. Why that matters? Well, it shouldn't actually matter at all, but many people who misunderstand property laws and trademarks have worked themselves up over it. The idea goes if this poster is from 1928 the same year of Steamboat Willie's release then it and its design of the Mouse is public domain and free to use, if not then we'll have to wait another year to January 2025.
The problem here is that the question is irrelevant, to qualify for copyright status in the United States of America before 1988, a work must be released with a valid copyright notice and be registered at the copyright office. Do you see a copyright notice? I honestly can't and this is the cleanest high resolution version I've found. So, while the year of release would be of historical interest, it's irrelevant to the subject of ownership.
Under the 1909 Act, federal statutory copyright protection attached to
original works only when those works were 1) published and 2) had a
notice of copyright affixed. Thus, state copyright law governed
protection for unpublished works, but published works, whether
containing a notice of copyright or not, were governed exclusively by
federal law. If no notice of copyright was affixed to a work and the
work was "published" in a legal sense, the 1909 Act provided no
copyright protection and the work became part of the public domain. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1909]
You might be wondering why Disney even in the early days when Disney was still just a man forgot to protect this piece of his IP. He probably didn't forget, he just didn't bother, lots of American advertising and promotional material was released without bothering to register for copyright. Remember, the point of copyright terms was to provide long-term ownership of material and its business potential, promotional materials by design have a short shelf life. The poster at the centre of this mini controversy was run at some point between 1928-29, and then never again. Disney and Iwerks made more Mickey Mouse cartoons and other shorts.
Every New Year's Day is Public Domain day, when many works of art fall out of copyright. Last time the biggest news was Mickey Mouse, next January the United States welcomes Popeye to intellectual freedom. Popeye debuted in 1929 in the Thimble Theatre comics, and was the inspiration of E.C. Segar. Segar died in 1938 which means that Popeye has been public domain in the rest of the world for some years now. Though finally Americans get to join in the fun.
Of course, even in the United States a surprisingly large amount of Popeye material had fallen into the public domain before, including my personal favourite Popeye cartoon Popeye for President! (see above). But with his first appearance falling into the public domain in America, this will give fan artists and other creators freer reign to remix and incorporate him in their own works.
I won't pretend Popeye is a favourite of mine, but he does hold a place in my heart. As a child, TV channels would play his public domain cartoons in the mornings, and as a son of a sailor I've had a soft spot for the guy and his squinty smile, he was certainly more relatable and less distant than Horatio Hornblower. And I do in fact enjoy me Spinach. Oh, and living in the UK we got to enjoy some perks of Segar's legacy, more on that below.
A fun fact about Popeye, his `Goil` Olive Oyl is already public domain in the USA too, she predates the sailor with a penchant for Spinach by one whole ten years. Olive Oyl was one of the original cast members when the strips were first run in 1919.
Scene from Thimble Theatre, 1925
Yanks will sadly have to wait two more years for the Hamburger mooching J. Wellington Wimpy "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a burger today", to fall into the public domain, as his first appearance was in 1931. Which makes sense, he is after all a reflection on the Great Depression.
Speaking depression Wimpy, in the UK there was once a popular burger restaurant chain named after Wimpy. That's right, Popeye as a brand was once so popular that a supporting character's name could shift burgers and build an international food company. The original Wimpy's were American, but its biggest markets were the UK, South Africa (during Apartheid) and Ireland. In fact, for a time Wimpy was so enmeshed in the UK economy that the Provisional IRA bombed one of their restaurants as part of their campaign to wreck the British economy and spread general panic. One bomb disposal officer was killed while trying to disarm the explosive.
I'm not old enough to remember its golden period, nor have I ever had a Wimpy burger, since I've never lived in a town where they still had their last remaining branches. But it is remembered by older people, who lament its loss when the restaurant is brought up in conversation. It was still around in a limited fashion when I was a lad though, I can remember seeing adverts on TV, and Popeye themed wind-up toys that were given away in its kids meals during a doomed attempt to survive competition with McDonald's, another fast food chain that has a history with the Provisional IRA now that I think about it. Looking back, I don't think naming a burger restaurant after a man named Wimpy and was famous for not actually paying for those burgers he snaffled was a great idea. But, then again, I'm no marketing genius.
Last
Christmas, I scratched It's a Wonderful Life off my to watch list. It
took me awhile, I suppose it was a combination of never being on TV when
I was free at Christmastime and a case of absorbing much of the film
via cultural osmosis due to the staggering number of other media
spoofing, parodying and tributing the film. I learnt about the key plot
twists as a child thanks to the Simpsons and an episode of Johnny Bravo.
I was surprised to learn that the bits everyone knows about are only a
fraction of the film, and that I still really enjoyed it despite popular
culture spoiling nearly every key scene. Initially Jimmy Stewart's
performance stunned me since I had been under the impression that his
aww shucks and golly gee dialogue and put upon but dogged demeanour
combined with that semi-warble line delivery was a product of
exaggerated spoofs and not the performance of a Hollywood leading man.
It's
a great film, has a good moral, the cast plays their roles excellently,
I didn't feel its length and this is nothing new to anyone whose seen
the film. All I'll say on that is that if you were like me and were in
no rush to see it, give it a go, it'll be a pleasant evening.
So,
with that out of the way, the reason I'm talking about this movie is
politics. The film was controversial on release wayback in 1946, the FBI
in an early move in the second Red Scare investigated the film on
suspicion of it being Communist propaganda.
There is submitted herewith the running memorandum concerning
Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry which has been
brought up to date as of May 26, 1947....
With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", [redacted] stated
in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to
discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so
that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to
these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.
[redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately
maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money
were mean and despicable characters. [redacted] related that if he made
this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual
to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiner
in connection with making loans. Further, [redacted] stated that the
scene wouldn't have "suffered at all" in portraying the banker as a man
who was protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and
adhering to the rules governing the loan of that money rather than
portraying the part as it was shown. In summary, [redacted] stated that
it was not necessary to make the banker such a mean character and "I
would never have done it that way."
Which
is of course total nonsense. Yes, Mr Potter as portrayed by Lionel
Barrymore is an absolute scumbag who you're supposed to hate with
vehemence, but Jimmy Stewart's character is also a banker. The film
isn't Communist at all, Capra the director of the film is throwing his
weight behind small scale community oriented capitalism. Bailey Brothers
Building and Loans is a bank and its importance as an institution in
the town and the hope it provides to the residence of Bedford Falls is
salvation through capital investment, the homes they're building and
enabling the community to buy come from those investments.
Potter and Bailey are opposed ideologically, but it's an ideological divide within,
the logic of capitalism. Potter represents old monopoly capitalism, he
spends the film trying to destroy the Bailey Brothers because they are
the one sole form of competition in the area, so he as the big
established capitalist uses every advantage he has to break the rival
bank, and when that fails he just steals from them to try and deal the
killing blow. I think what really got the FBI and its informant
[REDACTED] ornery was that Potter, the villain, is representative of the
American system, he's the typical capitalist and so criticism of how he
acts and behaves is criticism of officially sanctioned America. He also
doesn't face any punishment for his many morally and ethically dubious
but often legal actions. I don't know if Frank Capra was consciously
aware of just how damning that is a judgement of American society. The
film shows us that the established powers in America can use that power
to crush the good in society out of personal spite or paranoia over a
potential competition, and they can do that with impunity.
The
real tragedy is that in the real world, the Potters won. Credit Unions,
community and co-operative banks still exist in the present and some
have grown to some size, but compared to the banks' ala Potter? Pebbles
next to mountains. The successful stakeholder initiatives increasingly
morph into or sell to the big banks, which are now so big and
concentrate so much capital that they can plunge the whole global
economy into recessions when they screw up. And closer to home, the
Potters won the battle for the film.
It's a Wonderful Life didn't
just annoy the FBI, it did poorly with the critics and was a box office
disappointment. It languished in obscurity and was such a low priority
that when the copyright was up for renewal in 1974 it was botched,
pushing the film into the public domain. Thanks to that clerical error
that led to the film's eventual rise to classic status and beloved
fixture of American holidays. TV stations could air the film in exchange
for royalties to the owner of the copyright of The Greatest Gift, the
24-page source material, which still made it much cheaper to show than
most alternative films. This also probably played a role in why the film
is so widely referenced, parody is protected under the doctrine of Fair
Use, copyright can still provide grounds for offended rights holders to
make it not worth the trouble.
Republic Pictures used its
ownership of the copyright to the source material to clamp down further
on the distribution of the film, effectively forcing it back into
copyright. Republic Pictures had closed down in the 1960s and was
revived in the 80s due to business restructuring, shortly after
reclaiming It's a Wonderful Life they were folded up into Viacom. No one
who worked on the story or the film is connected with the royalties and
fees that are accrued by the film today. The cinematic community has
been robbed of the film thanks to the power of large corporations to
influence the legal system of the United States with their large law
firms and lobbying agents.
I suppose It's a Wonderful Life has
some solace for us, in the film Potters triumph as bleak as it is not
the end of the struggle, George Bailey doesn't give into despair despite
the many trying obstacles, he earns his happy ending and we can too.
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