On Time and Being in the public domain

 

Pay special attention to the year 1929 listed at the bottom

 

Warning to enjoyers of classic media, I've noticed a dirty trick by several bad actors to keep older works under control of estates and corporate departments. In the United States of America, copyright still works differently than in most of the rest of the world. The year of release is the most important aspect for determining if a work is or is not still in copyright. As the year's tick by and more and more popular and well remembered (still able to generate profit) works fall into the public domain, I'm seeing what I guess can be called retroactive release date extensions. 

If you look at the screenshot above, you will notice that the classic air ace film Wings is available for purchasing or rent on YouTube. You may also notice the year listed is 1929. This is not the year Wings was released. It was in fact released in 1927, why the discrepancy? Well, American works released in 1927 or earlier are now in the public domain. Whereas 1929 works at the time of writing are still in copyright. This isn't a little white lie either, I've received take down notices by companies using this false redating, and on at least one occasion while I was compiling evidence for my challenge I noticed that the English language wikipedia entry for the film in question had also mysteriously had new dates, this has since been corrected.

 

So, what can you do about this? Well, like all other forms of copyfraud we can't stop the perpetrators from doing this, we can however challenge and expose this. While wikipedia can be edited by anyone, there are several definitive databases that cannot be tampered with. For American film's I always check the American Film Institute which lists the release dates and premieres of every commercially released American film. For example, the entry on Wings clearly shows multiple screenings in 1927. For British films, the British Film Institute also fulfils this service.  So be vigilant, if in doubt check at authoritative sources.