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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 3, 2017 0:08:07 GMT -5
There is a downside to the public domain issue and that can easily be seen in the world of film and home video There have been quite a number of films, even through the 1950's, that have fell into public domain. Which means, any company can release that film into the marketplace on DVD. So certain films have have been distributed from dozens of companies, cheaply priced and in horrible condition. Grainy, edited, scratched, terrible audio, blurred..many times unwatchable. And there is no incentive for anyone to remaster the film since the market is flooded with that title. Some of the most popular public domain movies include D.O.A. Night Of The Living Dead His Girl Friday A Farewell To Arms Angel And The Badman Dementia 13 Strange Love Of Martha Ivers Father's Little Dividend Detour and many more. For any available print in decent shape, there's dozens that are horrendous. And odds are most will never be restored because they are in public domain That's kind of interesting that it's that way with film, because it's not at all that way with public domain music. I mean, yeah, every company and their mother might put out old pre-War blues records or old timey country stuff, but there will always be those labels who pride themselves on putting the stuff out in the highest possible quality (I'm thinking of labels like Yazoo, Ace and Sony). Yes, you can pick up a Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell or Doc Boggs album for cheap, but more discerning buyers know that you get a much better sounding and better packaged product from one of the specialist labels. Weird that the same thing hasn't happened with film. I'm guessing here but I'm pretty sure it's much more expensive to restore a full movie vs audio only. Then there is the problem of finding a workable print of a public domain film to begin with. The movie studios would not have them and you might have to find several prints and cobble them together, each needing their own clean-ups. The cost of executing this and then competing with the dozens of copies out there for the consumer's cash wouldn't leave anything for a profit. There would be no demand for streaming/pay-per-view or other avenues on these old films to help generate revenue. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,212 
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Post by Confessor on Jul 3, 2017 0:14:38 GMT -5
I'm guessing here but I'm pretty sure it's much more expensive to restore a full movie vs audio only. Yeah, good point. I imagine it is much more work intensive -- and therefore more expensive -- to clean up a film and it's soundtrack, than it is to just clean up audio. |
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