Broken Metropolis Videos on YouTube

Yes, I know, all my YouTube clips are currently disabled.

Kino International have been 'busy' again an got all of my videos on YouTube blocked, claiming copyright infringement. Copyright infringement on a film originally made in 1927 and which had its copyright expire in the US in 1955.

I thought I'd post about the actual situation with copyright of Metropolis.

Metropolis was made in 1927 by Fritz Lang (1890-1976) and originally shown in the US in the same year. Because the film was was not re-copyrighted within the applicable period (about 28 years back then), it fell into the public domain in 1955. In the past, copyright renewal did not happen automatically. Creators needed to renew copyright to retain the exclusive right to reproduce their work.

This did not happen with Metropolis (probably because it did so poorly in cinemas and wasn't deemed worth it).

That's why there are so many bad, bad copies and versions of Metropolis out there. You may now shudder if you've seen one of these :-)

Here's a general flowchart for determining copyright status:

(Click for a larger version)

Metropolis and a load of other foreign films had their copyright 'restored' in 1998. Quite how this happened, I'm not sure. How can you re-copyright a work that has already fallen into the public domain?

Apparently others wondered how you could do such a thing too. Normally the sequence of a work is:

1. Creation of a work
2. Copyright protection of the work
3. Work falls into public domain

However the Golan v. Gonzalez case filed in 2001, challenged the re-copyrighting of public domain works. Things got complicated, as they do with legal stuff like this. Lots of lawyers probably made lots of money.

Disappointingly, this challenge was not upheld ... but was later reconsidered as Golan v. Holder. The key point of contention here was that re-copyrighting public domains works violates your First Amendment Rights.

The good news was that in 2009 Judge Babcock reversed his earlier findings, stating that "In the United States, that body of law includes the bedrock principle that works in the public domain remain in the public domain. Removing works from the public domain violated Plaintiffs’ vested First Amendment interests." (emphasis added).

Basically that means that works that are in the public domain before 1994, can't be re-copyrighted. Like, um ... let me think ... Metropolis?

Of course, I'm no lawyer myself but the whole concept of restoring the lapsed copyright of a film a bit ... dodgy.

Improvements to the DVD Edit

Here's an quick update on the great new things coming on the new version of my DVD.

The end credits have been typed in (thanks Christian v. Petersenn!), so all of the credits are clean new digital versions now. You can even read the copyright notices if you like (but not in the screenshot below).

It was weird including them, as the copyright notices are actually for a different film. While Metropolis Redux is based on Moroder's original work, it isn't actually Moroder's movie anymore.

I've just finished tweaking the start of the scene where Rotwang chases Maria. When Rotwang reaches his hand out of the dark to extinguish Maria's candle, the Moroder version has more footage of the hand coming down over the candle.

I've now got half a second more of the hand and I've made the candle dim before it cuts to black. It was a pain to do but I think it shows Rotwang putting the candle out much better.

I'm currently checking the synch on the brand new version of the digital soundtrack. Other than being louder, this version sound more 'smooth' in my opinion. My original soundtrack had good highs and bass, but I can now tell it was lacking in the mids.

As a number of people have requested it, I'm working on making the handshake in the final shot of the movie more like Moroder's version. The restored footage ends earlier - before their hands actual clasp - so I'm going to have to build about 1 second more footage just like I did for the candle extinguishing mentioned above. Oh great, more digital compositing!

Metropolis Trailer Out Now!

Hot on YouTube is my newly finished restoration of the 1984 trailer for the film.

Lovingly hand-crafted as usual, this restored trailer features new narration from a professional voice artist and a super clean audio & video track.

Note that the log still at the end of the clip is just so I can get a good preview frame on YouTube. I don't know any other way of being able to guarantee a good preview still :-)

Who'd Have Thought A Trailer Was So Hard To Make?

I know it's been ages since I last posted anything.

Sorry about that.

I was having real trouble getting the voice over right on the restored trailer. I'd shelved the edit several time and was about to try something else when I was contacted by a professional voice-over artist asking if he could be of any help. Oh, great timing!

The guy who has recorded the brand new voice over has done work for big name studios and was able to reproduce the original guy's dialogue very well.

I've now just finished dropping the voice track into the trailer and re-doing some of the zooms. It's amazing how hard it is to get a simple still image to zoom in to the right place!

In the next couple of days I'll be posting the new trailer.

I also have a brand new version of the soundtrack available. Another fan sent me a digital rip of the soundtrack straight off laserdisc. This version is pure digital and much louder that the previous one I had to work with. It also has a more mellow sound in my opinion.

I now have to ask some of the Metropolis fans out there which version they prefer and see if it should go on version 1.5