Ask HN: Public domain vintage/archive video footage?

1 points by tomahony 11 years ago | 2 comments

Maybe there is somebody here who could help me clarify licensing laws. I am interested in finding some old video footage (short clips of cartoons, dancing etc. from < 1970) that I can use commercially, i.e. they will be a part of a resold product

I have looked on popular video stock footage sites like Pond5.com but from what I understand, their license won't allow you to modify or resell the video footage (I'm open to correction here).

I presume I should be looking for public domain material in which the copyright has expired. How can I find this and how can I be sure the copyright has indeed expired and I am ok to use it?

enkiv2 11 years ago |

Try looking at the prelinger archive, which is now hosted on archive.org. Pay attention to the copyright situation, though -- which differs heavily between countries.

There are a lot of notable films that are in the public domain in the united states because of some changes to copyright law in the US that occurred in the late 50s and early 60s -- Night of the Living Dead, the original Jim Henson version of Cube, Fritz Lang's Metropolis. But, those films are not necessarily out of copyright elsewhere (and some countries, such as Germany, have no concept of a public domain -- all works belong to the estate of their creators in perpetuity).

tomahony 11 years ago | |

Thanks for the reply - that's a really fantastic resource. I've browsed through briefly and there are thousands of video. I've also found a good list of animated films in the public domain (US) so I might look for copies of some of those

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_films_in_the_p...

I'm situated in Europe so it does indeed raise the question of copyright outside of the US. I will have to investigate and try find some legal copyright resources on the topic.