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Poster:	HektorT	Date:	October 14, 2012 09:42:21am
Forum:	moviesandfilms	Subject:	Re: Mambo (1954) copyright status

This issue has come up before, the US Circuit Court has ruled:

The circulars provided by the Copyright Office are intended simply to aid the public in understanding copyright law. See Whelan Associates, Inc. v. Jaslow Dental Laboratory, Inc., 797 F.2d 1222, 1242 n.38 (3d Cir. 1986) (‘Copyright Office circulars are not technical documents, but are “intended to present simple explanations of the law,” for lay persons.’).

In fact, the text you quote is accurate for most cases and is probably stated in the way it is because the assumption that a GATT eligible film is generally a foreign film is usually true. but I like to point to the example of the recent copyright violation case concerning the Italian film, La Dolce Vita. In which the judge ruled against the plaintiff because he said they hadn't proved they had any rights in the film and it wasn't even clear that the film was not in the Public Domain. That's for a very famous film that has many foreign authors.

I don't know where I got the information I posted above, but I'm pretty sure it's correct. Not wanting to do in-depth research, I refer you to my favorite resource,
here. Please notice the use of the phrase points to so even for an IP lawyer, nothing is definite, but it implies that for a US owned 'work' there is no GATT relief.

The following conditions point to the work being a non-U.S. work for copyright purposes: work made by a non-American company; by a resident of a country other than the U.S.; by Americans working on behalf of a non-U.S. company, individual or combination thereof; or commissioned by an entity which is not a citizen or company claiming the U.S. as its nation

also

Citizenship or sovereignty status, not location where a work is made, establishes nationality insofar as copyright status is concerned.

So my point is that in no way is it definite that the film is GATT eligible without some information that we probably can't easily get a hold of and in this case my personal conclusion would be that if it can be shown that the production company is American, then the film is PD.


This post was modified by HektorT on 2012-10-14 16:28:46

This post was modified by HektorT on 2012-10-14 16:42:21

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Poster:	larus	Date:	October 14, 2012 10:17:34am
Forum:	moviesandfilms	Subject:	Re: Mambo (1954) copyright status

Thanks for the additional information, especially the Dolce Vita case I hadn't heard about.

I also originally missed the fact that the film was an Italian-American production. Going by the fact that IMDB listed Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentiis, two Italian citizens, as the producers and Ponti-De Laurentiis Cinematografica as the production company, I had thought it was a pure Italian production. However, the American Film Institute entry does call the film an "American-Italian co-production" and list Paramount Pictures as a production company, along with the Ponti-De Laurentiis vehicle.
I don't have the feeling that Paramount's contribution was a major one because the original copyright registration doesn't emphasize it and only lists the Ponti-De Laurentiis vehicle as a production company:
MAMBO.
Produzione Ponti De Laurentiis. Rome.
Released in the U. S. by Paramount Pictures Corp.
94 min., sd., b&w, 35mm.
© Paramount Pictures Corp.; 13Nov54; LP4586.

When you called the film "an American production", I don't know if you meant a pure American production or whether a partial or even minor American contribution was sufficient to earn this label in your eyes.
Still, I don't know how much impact that partial American involvement has on the eligibility of the film for copyright restoration under URAA/GATT and haven't seen any resource dealing with such cases.

In this light, I withdraw my original statement stating the film "is definitely under copyright".
I still think there's a good chance it is under copyright, and consider the fact that it is not carried by public domain distributors Alpha Video and Mill Creek Entertainment as a red flag. But it's hard to know for sure until a similar case goes to court.

From now on, I'll steal a page from IP lawyers' books and use qualifiers such as points to, suggests that and so on.

Cheers!

This post was modified by larus on 2012-10-14 17:17:34

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Poster:	HektorT	Date:	October 14, 2012 10:31:45am
Forum:	moviesandfilms	Subject:	Re: Mambo (1954) copyright status

Yeah, some cases are really difficult to decipher. I agree with you on the red flag, but if Paramount owns the copyright, I wonder how much weight that would carry.

This post was modified by HektorT on 2012-10-14 17:31:45