Commons:Deletion requests/File:Minnie the Moocher (1932).webm

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This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

File:Minnie the Moocher (1932).webm

[edit]

Copyright was renewed. Licence tag claim is false. A search of http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003910311 shows most if not all these uploaded Betty Boop vidoes were renewed from 1959 onwards. See Commons:Village_pump/Copyright/Archive/2012/07#1932_Bamboo_Isle and [1] page 805. 84user (talk) 01:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Keep (I am answering here both for this film and for Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle.) Yes, I agree with you, the copyright was renewed by UM&M and the renewal published in 1959. But...
    • What is at stake here is the chain of property title after this renewal : Fleischer transferred its rights to Paramount in 1941, who transferred them to UM&M in 1958, who transferred them to NTA, who transferred them to Republic in 1986. The court of appeal for the 9th district ruled in 2011 there was a failure "to satisfy [the] burden of proof regarding the transfer of rights from UM&M to NTA and from NTA to Republic Pictures" [2]. As a consequence of this judgement, all 22 films at Internet Archive, including Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle and Minnie the Moocher, are considered here to be PD.
    • I see no copyright notice for Minnie the Moocher on the film (so even if the copyright was renewed and without considering the issue of the chain of title, it is PD [3]).
    • Concerning Betty Boop's Bamboo Isle, the film is 'presented' by UM&M with a Paramount copyright claim. Therefore, US Code 17:406.a applies and reverts the burden of proof in case of good faith copyright infringement in presence of an incorrect copyright notice (i.e. not COM:PCP).
I assumed the situation was sufficiently addressed by the template I used (not renewed meaning in this case broken chain of title), but I will be happy to improve the wording with you. Should we find a consensus here, I think it would apply mutatis mutandis to Bamboo Isle. Thanks, — Racconish ✉ 09:31, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Kept: as per Racconish. Yann (talk) 21:47, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This deletion discussion is now closed. Please do not make any edits to this archive. You can read the deletion policy or ask a question at the Village pump. If the circumstances surrounding this file have changed in a notable manner, you may re-nominate this file or ask for it to be undeleted.

File:Minnie the Moocher (1932).webm

[edit]

This film was copyrighted in 1932 by U.M.&M. and the copyright was renewed. In the previous deletion discussion, several arguments were made for this film being public domain. First, it was argued that the 9th circuit found no proof that copyright was transferred from U.M.&M to NTA and from NTA to Republic Pictures. While that is true, the copyright that was being discussed by the court was the character copyright for Betty Boop, not the copyright for the Minnie the Moocher cartoon (or the other Betty Boop cartoons now hosted on Commons). And even if it was, that would just mean that U.M.&M. still retained the copyright, not that the copyright somehow ceased to exist. Another argument put forth is that this website claims the cartoons are public domain. However what it actually claims is that "a number of the Betty Boop films failed to re-register the copyright... [and] fell into the Public Domain", but that isn't the case for this particular cartoon (per the previous deletion discussion). The site also claims that the "Internet Archives hosts 22 films that are all in the public domain", however the author seems to be basing this claim solely on the fact that they are hosted by the Internet Archive, and as we know, anyone can upload cartoons to the Internet Archive and claim they are public domain with no proof at all. The Internet Archive rarely bothers to verify such claims. Finally, it was claimed that this cartoon was published without a copyright notice, however, the copyright notice was simply blacked out and can be clearly seen in other copies of this cartoon on YouTube, such as this one. Kaldari (talk) 06:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Delete per nom. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 15:34, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Keep It is a well known fact copyright for the older Betty Boop films was not renewed (see e.g. here or there). As indicated in the Wikipedia article Fleischer Studios, "the majority of the Fleischer cartoons off the air by the mid 60s when the original copyrights were due for renewal. NTA failed to renew the copyrights, which placed the majority of the Fleischer film library [...] into the public domain". Minnie the Moocher was initially copyrighted in 1932 [4] and was up for renewal in 1960. A search for renewal in 1959, 1960, and 1961 film copyright renewals returned no result with the word "Moocher" [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]. Additionally, according to the same Wikipedia article, "NTA placed their logo at the heads and tails of the films and blacked out references to Paramount, Technicolor, Cinecolor, and Polacolor. NTA placed the copyright notices on the end NTA logo instead of on the title frame, which immediately cancelled the copyrights, placing them in the public domain". — Racconish 💬 07:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Racconish: You can see the renewal record for Minnie the Moocher here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015084450827&view=1up&seq=119. Your last argument is interesting, but I don't think it's accurate. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, it's perfectly fine to put a copyright notice at the end of a motion picture: "Acceptable methods for affixing and positioning the notice on a motion picture or other audiovisual work include: ... at or immediately preceding the end of the work."[11] And before the 1970s, the law only required that a copyright notice be "on some accessible portion of such copies". Kaldari (talk) 04:02, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Kaldari: I am ashamed of my mistake. You are indeed right, the copyright was renewed between January and June 1959 and I have no idea why I did not find it myself while searching the same document as you, which would have spared me the ridicule of the first argument above. Concerning the second argument I yield to your reasoning, if only by application of PCP. Hence  Delete with renewed apologies. — Racconish 💬 07:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Racconish: No worries! Copyright verification isn't easy, and I'm sad we have to delete files like this. If it weren't for the fact that it is likely to cause problems for our re-users, I would gladly leave it be. Kaldari (talk) 15:00, 2 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted: per nomination and consensus. Can be restored in 2028. --Rosenzweig τ 21:30, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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