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friendlessghoul · 3 days

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Buster Keaton and Kathryn McGuire The Navigator - 1924

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busterkeatonsociety · 21 hours

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#ThrowbackThursday A selection from Film-Kurier’s pull-out advertising the German language version of “Free & Easy.

#throwback thursday #buster keaton #free & easy #mgm #talkies #1930s #vintage hollywood #german cinema #trixie friganza #anita page #ibks #the international buster keaton society #buster keaton society #the damfinos #damfino #damfamily

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batboyblog · 4 months

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Copy Right and Public Domain in 2024

Happy 2024 all! its also Public Domain Day! a magical holiday here in America where things enter the public domain. Works published in the year 1928 (or 95 years ago!) have entered the public domain, which means they belong to us, all of us, the public!

Mickey's Back!

Yes! I'm sure you've heard, but Mickey Mouse (and Minnie Mouse too) is entering the Public Domain today. This has been news for a few years and indeed Disney's lobbying in the late 1990s is why our copy right term is SO long. So what exactly is now public domain?

Most people know about Mickey's first appearance Steamboat Willie, but a second short film, Plane Crazy was also released in 1928 so will also be public domain. So what's public? well these two films first of all, you're allowed to play them, upload them to YouTube or whatever without paying Disney. In theory you'll be allowed to cut and sample them, have them playing in the background of your movie etc. Likewise in theory the image of Mickey and Minnie as they appear (thats important) in these films will be free to use as well as Mickey's character as he appears in these works will be free to use. Now Mickey's later and more famous appearance

will still be protected. Famously the Conan Doyle Estate claimed that Sherlock Holmes couldn't be nice, smile, or not hate women in works because they still held the copyright on the short stories where he first did those things even though 90% of Sherlock Holmes stories were public domain. It's very likely Disney will assert similar claims over Mickey, claiming much of his personality first appeared in works still copyrighted.

Finally there's copyright vs trademark. Copyright is total ownership of a piece of media and all the ideas that appear in it, copyright has a limited set term and expires. Trademark is more limited and only applies to things used to market and sell a product. You can have a Coke branded vending machine in your movie if you want, but it couldn't appear anywhere in the trailer for your movie as thats you marketing your movie.

Where trademark ends and copyright begins and how trademarked something in the public domain is allowed to be are all unsettled areas of law and clearly Disney in the last few years as been aggressively pushing its trademark not just to Mickey in general but Steamboat Willie Mickey in particular

Ultimately the legal rights and wrongs of this might not matter so much since few people have the money and legal resources of the Walt Disney corporation so they might manage to maintain a de facto copyright on Mickey through legal intimidation, but maybe not?

And Tigger Too!

All the talk about Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willie has sadly overshadowed other MAJOR things entering the public domain today. Most people are aware Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in 2022, but they might not realize his beloved friend Tigger didn't. Thats because Tigger didn't appear till A. A. Milne's second (and last) book of Pooh short stories, The House at Pooh Corner in 1928.

Much like Mickey Mouse only what appears in The House at Pooh Corner is public domain so the orange bouncy boy from the 1960s Disney cartoon is still on lock down. But the A. A. Milne original as illustrated by E. H. Shepard is free for you to use in fiction or art. His friend Winnie the Pooh has made a number of appearances since being freed, most notably in a horror movie, but also a Mint Mobile commercial so maybe Tigger too will have a lot of luck in the public domain.

Other works:

Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up

Peter Pan is a strange case, even though the play was first mounted in 1904, and the novelization (Peter and Wendy) was published in 1911, The script for the play was not published till 1928 (confusing!) meaning while the novel as been public domain for years the play (which came first) hasn't been, but now it is and people are welcome to mount productions of it.

Millions of Cats

The oldest picture book still in print, did you own a copy growing up? (I did)

Lady Chatterley's Lover

The iconic porn novel that was at the center of a number of groundbreaking obscenity cases in the 1960s and helped establish your right to free speech.

All Quiet on the Western Front and The Threepenny Opera in their original German (but you can translate them if you want), The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, and Orlando by Virginia Woolf will also be joining us in the public domain along with any and all plays, novels, and books published in 1928

for Films we have The Man Who Laughs who's iconic image inspired the Joker

Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, Buster Keaton's The Cameraman, Should Married Men Go Home? the first Laurel and Hardy movie, Lights of New York the first "all talking" movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Wind, as well as The Last Command and Street Angel the first films to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively will all be entering public domain

For Musical Compositions (more on that in a moment) we've got

Mack the Knife by Bertolt Brecht, Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love) by Cole Porter, Sonny Boy by George Gard DeSylva, Lew Brown & Ray Henderson, Empty Bed Blues by J. C. Johnson, and Makin’ Whoopee! by Gus Khan are some of the notables but any piece of music published in 1928 is covered

Any art work published in 1928, which might include works by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Alexej von Jawlensky, Edward Hopper, and André Kertész will enter the public domain, we are sure those that M. C. Escher's Tower of Babel will be in the public domain

Swan Song, Public Domain and recorded music

While most things are covered by the Copyright Act of 1976 as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, none of the copyright acts covered recordings you see when American copyright law was first written recordings did not exist and so through its many amendings no one fixed this problem, movies were treated like plays and artwork, but recorded sound wasn't covered by any federal law. So all sound recordings from before 1972 were governed by a confusing mess of state level laws making it basically impossible to say what was public and what was under copyright. In 2017 Congress managed to do something right and passed the Music Modernization Act. Under the act all recordings from 1922 and before would enter the public domain in 2022. After taking a break for 2023, all sound recordings made in 1923 have entered the public domain today on January 1st 2024, these include.

Charleston by James P. Johnson

Yes! We Have No Bananas (recorded by a lot artists that year)

Who’s Sorry Now by Lewis James

Down Hearted Blues by Bessie Smith

Lawdy, Lawdy Blues by Ida Cox

Southern Blues and Moonshine Blues by Ma Rainey

That American Boy of Mine and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra

Dipper Mouth Blues and Froggie More by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, featuring Louis Armstrong

Bambalina by Ray Miller Orchestra

Swingin’ Down the Lane by Isham Jones Orchestra

Enjoy your public domain works!

#Copyright #public domain #public domain day #2024 #happy new year #Disney #mickey mouse #minnie mouse #Tigger #Winnie the Pooh #Peter Pan #Charlie Chaplin #buster keaton #cole porter #louis armstrong #M. C. Escher

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pablolf · 10 months

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And Keanu says something really interesting to me on the first John Wick. He comes to me and he goes, “Look, just so you know, little bit of advice, when you edit, once a week, you should see the edit on the big screen.” And I’m like, OK, we’ll try. Later, alone with him, I’m going, “Well, why?” He’s like, “I’m a big-screen actor.” And I had no fucking idea what that meant. I thought it meant a movie star. And he’s like, “No, no, no, no.”

And he started talking to me about non-verbal acting, like gestures, motions. And he’s like, “Look, when you see me on a little monitor and I give this little look, it’s one thing. But when you see it on a 40-foot screen, that look’s going to say a lot. That’s what I want to play this guy as. So just please be aware of it, so when we punch in on the closeups, it’s going to mean something.” And it kind of really clicked for me right there.

I’ve always been fascinated by non-verbal gesture, body language. Keanu would go through and strip his dialogue down. It was like, “No, no, nope. I’m just going to cuddle the puppy.” In the first John Wick, he doesn’t talk for 32 minutes. Try to sell that one to a studio: You have Keanu Reeves and you’re not going to let him talk.

Chad Stahelski on what the John Wick movies owe to Buster Keaton

#chad stahelski #john wick #buster keaton #film #interview #keanu reeves #acting

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shy-attention-whore · 5 months

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me, whenever someone asks what I like to do for fun

#spend wayy too much time doing this #sexualising that old man #buster keaton #conan o'brien #vincent price #david duchovny #stephen colbert #jon stewart #jimmy stewart #forever and always #joseph gordon levitt #dave foley #hugh grant #paul dinello #dana carvey #edward norton #not even a joke

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classicfilmsource · 6 months

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Buster Keaton in The Cook (1918)

#filmedit #oldhollywoodedit #classicfilmedit #romanceedit #classicfilmblr #cinemapix #filmgifs #moviegifs #doyouevenfilm #the cook #buster keaton #ours #gifs #by ria #1910s

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bwallure · 4 months

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SHERLOCK JR. (1924) dir. Buster Keaton

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hotvintagepoll · 2 months

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Propaganda

Omar Sharif (Funny Girl, Lawrence of Arabia)—Dark and thrilling, strange and sweet, honey in your ear, spice in your mouth, he was Sherif Ali the Arab, Yuri Zhivago the Russian, Colonel Grau the German and much much much more, here's to the one and only Omar Sharif---- Pharaoh of romance!!! (I'm sorry Im stealing lyrics from the song "Omar Sharif" but it ain't lying!)

Buster Keaton (The General, The Navigator, Sherlock Jr.)—For me Buster’s hotness comes not just from his physical beauty but in the constant surprise and contradictions of the man, he’s simultaneously delicate/rough, feminine/masculine, confident/vulnerable, 5foot5 pretty face with an unexpectedly deep voice, at first glance you think oh he’s a cute little thing and then he takes his top off and it’s Superman abs underneath. He was intensely shy in social situations but had no hesitation in jumping off the top of a building. He famously never smiled on screen* but he exudes warmth and joy and laughter. He created some of the most beautiful, intelligent movies ever made but refused to acknowledge his own genius and talent as an artist, instead maintaining that all he wanted to do was make people laugh. If he was here in reality competing in this poll he would give it 100% but he would not be at all bothered if he didn’t win. And that’s why he’s the hottest vintage man. A vote for Buster is a vote for all that is good and decent in the world 💕 (*he did smile on camera occasionally despite his own assertions to the contrary 😄)

This is one of four polls in the tournament quarterfinals. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage man.

THIS POLL LASTS FOR 24 HOURS.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Buster Keaton propaganda: