Dedicator recognizes that, once placed in the public domain, the Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived.

well as i understand you can do anything you like with public domain movies unless a remake has been made with the same title in which case that title will surely be copyrighted
hope you aren't remaking Night of the Living Dead which is now in the public domain

Yeah i was aware of the copyright issues they had with Night, its probably one of the best public domain movies out there.

Night of the living dead has already been remade twice:
http://www.dead-donkey.com/modules/shar ... vies&id=86
http://www.dead-donkey.com/modules/shar ... ies&id=636

and colourised:
http://www.dead-donkey.com/modules/shar ... vies&id=87

It does raise a question, since it has been remade (twice), would that mean "Night of the Living Dead" can not be used? Has ownership been reclaimed with the remake? I was reading an interview with the guy that made the Day of the Dead remake, and he stated reasons for changing the plot, one of which was that George Romero would not allow him to use Night or Dawn as reference points, he could not use characters of either and he could not continue the plot of either. Which makes me think Night may have been reclaimed with the remake. Then again I don't trust that remaker, he had the balls to say Day of the Dead was the weakest movie and saw room for improvement before giving us his half-assed attempt.

However, I don't have any aspirations to insult a movie, nor do i think I have the talent to jump into such butchery. Its an entirely different film that is unbelievably crap, and its largely some plot elements and the name that I'm after

Well, this is what I take on it.

The public domain can also be defined in contrast to trademarks. Names, logos, and other identifying marks used in commerce can be restricted as proprietary trademarks for a single business to use. Trademarks can be maintained indefinitely, but they can also lapse through disuse, negligence, or widespread misuse, and enter the public domain. It is possible, however, for a lapsed trademark to become proprietary again, leaving the public domain. And it seems to vary country by country...

Don't know if any of these links can shed any insight...but from my understanding if there is a remake, it's then copyrighted for a certain amount of time and then brought back to the public domain, and trademarks can be kept indefinetly, maybe there is someone you can write to and clarify this....

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono ... ension_Act

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html

IANAL.


Select imagery and basic plot traits should definetely be usable if it's public domain. That's what public domain means; anyone can use the material for any purpose, including derivative works. The name of the movie probably falls under trademark (if it's trademarked!). You can probably check with the country the movie was made in to see if there's a trademark by that name registered.

If you're doing parody or something similar, you should be able to do that with copyrighted works as well. I believe it's called Fair Use in some countries. Even though being a derivative work, parody is of different nature than the original work.


Remakes do un-public-domain the original work. As long as you make a derivative work of the original, not of a remake, it should be all right. As to the trademark of the title, I'd assume that remakers would not be able to trademark the original name, since trademarks are supposed to be unique names to identify products.