Attack of the $1 DVDs 345
fm6 writes "The NY Times has an interesting piece on DVDs that sell for one or two bucks. Not all of them are crap -- apparently a lot of good movies never got copyrighted properly. But there's no silent movies ('not mass market'), or movies that aren't 'family friendly.' Here's what I find really interesting: none of the DVD companies mentioned in the article sell online -- it's all through discount bins in supermarkets and drug stores."
They're public domain (Score:3, Informative)
Yet, I believe you'd find half of Slashdot gripe, and ask for the bittorent...
The only reason these can be sold at a 1.00 USD price point is because the movies in question are public domain. They were first published in the United States on or before 1963, and their copyrights were never renewed. Sending a DVD-Rip to a stranger through BitTorrent in this case would not be an infringement of copyright as long as you don't copy anything introduced in the new edition (primarily the menus and other things that don't make it into a DVD-RIP).
All soundtracks are copyrighted (Score:5, Informative)
But there's no silent movies ("not mass market"), or movies that aren't "family friendly".
Playback of silent movies on a DVD player needs a soundtrack. All sound recordings published from the invention of the phonograph until February 15, 1972, are restricted under state law copyright until December 31, 2067 [pdinfo.com] (second source [joegratz.net]), and a bargain-basement DVD distributor such as DigiView doesn't have the resources to do its own dub job.
You get what you pay for..... (Score:1, Informative)
Contrary to article I see silent and R rated euro horror flicks in the buck range.
Re:$1 for a DVD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:All soundtracks are copyrighted (Score:3, Informative)
But that soundtrack doesn't need sound. It's trivial to make an uncopyrighted silent soundtrack for a DVD.
All sound recordings published from the invention of the phonograph until February 15, 1972, are restricted under state law copyright until December 31, 2067
Guess what; as far as anyone knows, this applies to the soundtrack for any movie. And you always have the option of not shipping to New York, which, as far as I know, is the only one so restricting sound recordings.
Re:never got copyrighted properly?? (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, copyright is automatic now. You used to have to register. Not only that, you had to put copyright notices on your stuff, and renew your copyright after a number of years if you wanted it to remain copyrighted. Some things are in the public domain by virtue of neglecting to put (c) on the title card.
Furthermore, stuff created for the government is (or at least was) automatically in the public domain.
Re:Some of the Highlights I've bought (Score:2, Informative)
I got the first two DVDs of Beverly Hillbillies for $1 each at the grocery store a while back. I had never seen episodes that early, before, and they were all hilarious. We're talking several episodes before they even wrote the lyrics to the theme song. Good stuff.
"The Beverly Hillbillies" always had the lyrics. Those cheap DVD's are a few episodes that fell into public domain. The theme song "Ballad of Jed Clampett" however, ISN'T in the public domain, so the video companies had to change the opening/closing music, or pay royalties on the music. I have several early episodes I bought through Columbia House on VHS in the late 1980's, and the music is intact. You'll find the cheap DVD's of "The Andy Griffith Show" had the opening/closing music changed also, for the same reasons. To get "Andy Griffith" with the original theme, you'd need to buy the Paramount Video releases.
Available at archive.org (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Some of the Highlights I've bought (Score:2, Informative)
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