Enter any Blockbuster in any town in the country and you will for sure encounter all the latest Hollywood hits, or horrors, depending on how you look at it. What is far scarcer and perhaps nonexistent on the shelves are the classic films, hits like Ma and Pa Kettle or Laurel and Hardy that you could sometimes catch on late night television when your parents thought you were asleep.
This disheartening lack of availability is leading to a lost generation who do not know the Swamp Thing, who thinks Edward Cullen is the hottest vampire of them all and to whom Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo and Cary Grant are names their parents uttered when in search of some dumb show.
Do not despair. Because of copyright protection, many of these films have entered the public domain introducing new viewers who only know about classic television to the far wider world of the silver screen classics and what stardom really means.
Just what is Public Domain and what does it All Mean?
Films are played in the public domain when there are no intellectual property rights influencing how and when they can be used and distributed. This makes it easy and convenient for websites are to distribute these great classic films to a wide audience without the exorbitant overhead costs that go along with royalties and so forth.
What does all this mean to the eager viewer of the classics whose going to be glued to the screen watching every film he can get his hands on? Websites like Hulu and Amazon have paid some punishing licensing fees to get copyrighted material on their sites. This results in a rather limited selection. The really obscure films aren’t part of the selection at all. Film buffs the world over are engaging in teeth gnashing and going to eBay in hopes of scoring an original vintage copy of the film that someone is trying to unload.
Yeah, right. As if any genuine film buff would put that up for sale to any old stranger. No way.
The Fact is the Internet IS the Public Domain
The awesome thing about the Internet is that it opens up whole new worlds in terms of public domain. Why? Because it can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, anytime.
The power of the internet is there for the taking and millions of people “take” it every day. Because of the public domain and the internet, a new generation of film watchers are able to see the classics as they were meant to be seen, not in some producers idea of a remake that rarely hits the mark.
It’s time to expand your horizons and earn that honor of being called a film buff. Show your kids there is something beyond “Twilight” and “Matrix” and heaven forbid the remake of “Tron.” When movie night rolls around again, stay put and get on the internet, search the sites for a really good classic film you want to see that night, and view it right there on your own silver screen.
If you happened to have appreciated the above piece, you are able to go take a look at more similar posts at Loving the Classics Reviews or this Loving the Classics Website.