I must be the only person in the world who has never seen the movie. Looks like it’s going to stay that way.
Any Three Stooges on TV over the next week or so?
It’s much better off with a custodial studio who cleaned the film up rather than the cheap-o public domain versions that were floating around.
Wonderful, beautiful, fantastic movie. Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed are great. Watch it every year. Love it!
Innovation in these industries is being stifled through the copyright cartel's litigiousness (just as the same tendency has totally skewed health care). But the trial lawyer group continues to have its politicians--particularly, but not exclusively, democraps) in their hip pocket.
The DMCA should be repealed, and we should go back to the original term limits in force on copyrights at 1920 "after the reset."
HF
As a songwriter,I have run into the jungle of Copyright Law a few times (LOL).
It only seems to be applied when there is money involved, and ignored when it is just a no-name composer or author being screwed over.
Case in point:
A friend of mine attempted to get a school system to CEASE AND DESIST photocopying and selling HIS guitar instruction book. The Federal Government, BMI, and Copyright Lawyers all REFUSED to help him even though he was totally justified because the case was so small.
Meanwhile ASCAP sued the GIRL SCOUTS for singing “God Bless America” in Public.
Does anyone besides me find It’s A Wonderful Life a bit too saccharine? Mary Poppins, too. (That one even has a sugary song, “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down”!)
A sensible alternative is to make copyright and patent law, for that matter, much like the General Mining Act of 1872. It said that anyone could strike a claim about anywhere, but each year they either had to earn $500 from that strike, or spend $500 improving the claim.
Right now, there is a vast amount of copyrighted materials kept in corporate libraries, that is never offered up for sale or use by the public. And it is even worse with patents, as corporations buy up thousands of patents, then sit on them, waiting for someone else to need that patent, for which they can demand royalties for as long as it is needed.
So if they want government protection, why shouldn’t they have to “Use it or lose it”?
A good example of this is found in Disney Corporation. Each year, they earn a fortune from Mickey Mouse. So they merit protection from companies around the world who would rip off Mickey for their own profit. However, Disney also owns the rights to the movie “Song of the South”, which they used to sell, but now refuse to market.
So “use it or lose it.” Either they agree to sell a given dollar amount of that movie to the public, or they should lose government protection for that product, so someone else can sell it. Their choice. Any consumer should be able to demand the sale of such a product, or that the product should lose its copyright protection if the company refuses to sell at least some.
If this was made the copyright and patent law, the public would see an immense release of existing material that had previously been released, resulting in an explosion of information and the productive use of invention.
Just by doing this alone, might be enough to stabilize the US economy for several years.
That's what it should remain. I have zero respect for copyright of anything more than 30 years old. Screw them all.
That Bing Crosby's grandchildren are still collecting on royalties they had nothing to do with more than 30 years after the old man died is ridiculous. Tell them to get off their butts and sing their own damn songs. (I have a feeling that Bing himself would be saying that if he were still alive.)
Does anyone else see the Bailey Building & Loan as a small version of Fannie Mae?
Great movie - one of my top 10, but my husband commented on the B&L - Fannie Mae connection when we were watching the movie the other night. I had never thought of it that way, but the B&L was making high risk loans to people who were turned down by the bank.