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Originally Posted by Daemonia  Thanks for that, Calum. I was genuinely curious as to how this works. So once a compilation is made, do the trailers then become the copyright property of the distributing company? Or are the trailers on a compilation open to anyone's use? Just wondering how that would work, as I'm sure the DVD(s) will carry a copyright warning, or is it just the newly shot introductions that would be copyrighted?
The main reason I'm asking is because just about all DVDs and VHS tapes carry a warning that all the content on the disc or tape is copyrighted material. DVDs say something along the lines that no part of the DVD can be copied or distributed without proper permission, in whole or in part. Just curious how people get around this. This would go for any trailer compilation, I'm not just singling Marc out here.
I was made curious about this issue a while back when I read this news report, where a US court ruled that trailers do not fall into 'fair use'. Have a read... Trailers are not
Like I say, I'm genuinely curious about the matter. |
Yeah, that's part of why I said I'd never try and use a trailer for Avatar.
I think that news report is a bit misleading though - what they are arguing is that the
use of this material, by Video Pipeline, did not constitute fair use - rather than that trailers themselves cannot be used under a "fair use" policy.
Here's some examples of recent fair use - the excellent documentary The People Vs George Lucas.
This Film is Not Yet Rated:
Both use clips from major studio films that have been signed off by lawyers as not breaching the "fair use" policy (the same happened with
American Grindhouse, although my involvement in it had long ceased by then).
So for these trailer documentaries the trailers will be ripped from other DVDs, and possibly an occasional VHS tape - but I'll be
damned if anyone ever bothered to copyright the trailers for Cannibal Ferox, The Boogeyman et al. And, as mentioned, pre-1976 and you're fine. So I think the people putting out these trailer discs are just fine - and it'll be nice to see some previews for ones even I've never seen located anywhere (kudos to Marc for getting a trailer for The Slayer and The Beast in Heat!).
It does, however, mean that the trailers themselves won't be the copyright of the person releasing the DVD - just the introductions.
As an aside, I was thinking of organising a collection of (rare) grindhouse trailers to accompany one of Arrow's forthcoming titles. What are people's thoughts? Has this done been to death already? It doesn't take long to do them and it might make for a nice addition to the main attraction?!