It’s A Wonderful Life is one of those timeless Christmas classics that many people watch year after year. It was directed by Frank Capra and debuted in theaters for Christmas in 1946. I came across this release while researching films in the public domain and was fascinated to learn that even though this film is available to the public for free, there are still many complications and stipulations with its copyright.
The film was released by Liberty Films which was founded by Frank Capra and Samuel J. Briskin. Liberty films only released two films, It’s A Wonderful Life and State of the Union. Even though It’s A Wonderful Life did modestly in theaters, it had such a large budget that it barely made a profit which helped lead to the failure of Liberty Films. Distribution rights to the film eventually went to RKO Radio Pictures and Paramount Pictures purchased the film and renewed the copyright in 1947 (Thuronyi). Republic Pictures ended up with the copyright after Paramount, but failed to renew the copyright, and the film became public domain in 1975. This follows the law at the time through the Copyright Act of 1909 and its Townsend Amendment 1912 which stated that a copyright was valid for 28 years once registered. It would have been eligible for another 28 years if copyright was filed before 1975. This is precisely why it became a yearly tradition shown on television: not because of its popularity but because it was free to air. This yearly showing would give it the reputation of a “holiday classic” (Thuronyi).
Although Republic Pictures lost copyright over the film, they somehow remembered to register copyright of the music and the story the film is based on called “The Greatest Gift” (Thuronyi). In 1993, “Republic Pictures notified all television networks to stop playing It’s a Wonderful Life without the payment of royalties” (Thuronyi). A licensing agreement was made with NBC where it still airs yearly.
This story reveals two interesting aspects about copyright. The first is that a film can gain popularity many years later just because it is in public domain making it free to screen not because it was loved when it came out. The second is that copyright has many different layers. Just because a film is in public domain, it does not mean other aspects of the film are also in public domain such as the source material and music.
This brings in interesting discussion on motion pictures and their copyright. “Because motion pictures are generally a collaborative effort, with many individuals contributing various creative efforts, they are typically deemed ‘joint works’” (Obradovich, 2016, p. 793). Even though the copyright for films are generally protected as a complete work despite numerous individual contributions, the Garcia v. Google case provided an interesting discussion about these individual copyrights. Republic Pictures claim that It’s A Wonderful Life is not in public domain because of its story and soundtrack which are protected leading to further discussions on the copyright of films and their individual elements separately copyrighted. “Many motion pictures include songs written and performed long before the film was created or even imagined” (Obradovich, 2016, p. 810). This is how Republic Pictures can get away with the storyline being copyrighted since it originated from a story they then owned. “If the contribution can stand alone from the integrated work, then its creator can claim separate copyright protection” (Obradovich, 2016, p. 810). Since its soundtrack and score are a separate art form, they can also claim separate copyright for the music. The music can be used in more ways than just the background for this film.
References
Obradovich, D. C. (2016). Garcia v google: Authorship in copyright. Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 31(2), 785 - 814. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26377772
Thuronyi, G. (2017, December 22). It’s a wonderful life | copyright: creativity at work. Library of Congress Blogs. https://blogs.loc.gov/copyright/2017/12/its-a-wonderful-life/