Trailers for movies released before 1964 are in the Public Domain because they were never separately copyrighted. The law at the time granted the owner 28 years to file a copyright registration.
1963 + 28 = 1991
Clearly, time has run out to register this material. Some might argue that since the trailers frequently contain the same material that’s in the movie, and the movie is presumably copyrighted, that this would cover the trailer as well. However, the trailer is published (run in a theater) before the movie itself is published. Thus, the trailer requires a separate copyright, and the scenes contained in the trailer are in Public Domain.
Note that all trailers, regardless of year, until the late 80’s, are O.K. to use if they contain no copyright notice. This does occur, although infrequently. For example, the trailer for “The Shootist” (John Wayne, 1976) contains no notice. It is therefore O.K. to use.
In the eyes of copyright law – a Movie Trailer is considered a seperate work and would require a seperate copyright on the trailer itself. Most studios did not copyright their trailers.
Trailers for movies released before 1964 are in the Public Domain because they were never separately copyrighted. The law at the time granted the owner 28 years to file a copyright registration. 1963 + 28 = 1991
Clearly, time has run out to register this material. Some might argue that since the trailers frequently contain the same material that’s in the movie, and the movie is presumably copyrighted, that this would cover the trailer as well. However, the trailer is published (run in a theater) before the movie itself is published. Thus, the trailer requires a separate copyright, and the scenes contained in the trailer are in Public Domain.
In addition,trailers between 1964 and 1989 published WITHOUT a copyright notice are also in the public domain.
The following case sheds some interesting light on the subject.
Works published before January 1, 1978, are governed by the previous copyright law (the 1909 copyright act). Under the 1909 Act (which covers works published from July 1, 1909 through December 31, 1977), copyright generally came into being upon publication with notice. If a work was published under the copyright owner’s authority without a proper notice of copyright, all copyright protection for that work was permanently lost in the United States.
Most trailers in the past have been ‘published’ without proper notice – studios didn”t see the the need or value to putting the notice,or even copyrighting the trailers as indivdual works. (They viewed it as advertising material that was transent and short-lived)
Under the current copyright law (which governs works published on or after January 1, 1978), copyright arises automatically, as soon as the work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression … but notice was still required until March 1, 1989. If a work was published without a copyright notice between January 1, 1978 and March 1, 1989, the copyright was still valid if: the notice was missing from a “relatively small number” of copies; or within 5 years after discovering the problem, the copyright owner registered the work with the Copyright Office and made “reasonable efforts” to add the notice to new copies; or the notice was omitted in violation of a written agreement stating that the notice had to be included on publicly distributed copies of the work
Referring back to HOFFHEINZ vs. A&E, while the court did not address the copyright status of the trailer in question, it does identify it as a separate work. As a separate work, it requires a separate copyright from the film itself. A trailer is published before the film is, and while shares footage with the film work, it in itself is a different work.
