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Old 12-14-2009, 09:24 PM   #14
Saya
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 9,548
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger View Post
Oh, and you can steer clear of the 1910 version of "Frankenstein". It's of historical interest only, as far as I'm concerned.

How is it all of these things have fallen into the public domain, including some good films like "Carnival of Souls", but Universal still retains all the rights to the classic 1930's monster movies? I'm just curious.
A lot of older films like Nosferatu have been public domain for some time, generally speaking as movies get older they lapse into public domain if no one claims the copyright after some time (or in the case of Night Of The Living Dead they didn't properly place a copyright notice to begin with which was required in US law after 1968 according to Wikipedia). But for monster flicks the copyright laws have been properly maintained, and they'll probably be making money off of Lugosi's Dracula for some time to come still so Universal won't be giving it up, but who knows? Someday it'll probably fall into public domain.

Thanks for the heads up though, I've been wanting to watch the Christopher Lee Dracula for some time.
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