

Ask HN: Public domain vintage/archive video footage? - tomahony

Maybe there is somebody here who could help me clarify licensing laws. I am interested in finding some old video footage (short clips of cartoons, dancing etc. from &lt; 1970) that I can use commercially, i.e. they will be a part of a resold product<p>I have looked on popular video stock footage sites like Pond5.com but from what I understand, their license won&#x27;t allow you to modify or resell the video footage (I&#x27;m open to correction here).<p>I presume I should be looking for public domain material in which the copyright has expired. How can I find this and how can I be sure the copyright has indeed expired and I am ok to use it?
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enkiv2
Try looking at the prelinger archive, which is now hosted on archive.org. Pay
attention to the copyright situation, though -- which differs heavily between
countries.

There are a lot of notable films that are in the public domain in the united
states because of some changes to copyright law in the US that occurred in the
late 50s and early 60s -- Night of the Living Dead, the original Jim Henson
version of Cube, Fritz Lang's Metropolis. But, those films are not necessarily
out of copyright elsewhere (and some countries, such as Germany, have no
concept of a public domain -- all works belong to the estate of their creators
in perpetuity).

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tomahony
Thanks for the reply - that's a really fantastic resource. I've browsed
through briefly and there are thousands of video. I've also found a good list
of animated films in the public domain (US) so I might look for copies of some
of those

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_films_in_the_p...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animated_films_in_the_public_domain_in_the_United_States)

I'm situated in Europe so it does indeed raise the question of copyright
outside of the US. I will have to investigate and try find some legal
copyright resources on the topic.

