Prior to 2005, Copyright in Australia was 50 years from first publication.

For broadcast signals copyright is 50 years from the first broadcast.

Therefore a film that is broadcast – and has been timeshifted – actually comes out of copyright – (providing it is the Broadcast copy distributed (e.g.: .ts) or a facsimile thereof – eg: H264 rip of time-shifted content) 50 years after it was first broadcast and not seventy years after it the death of the author or the Key Grip who may have advised on the correct way to shoot a scene. (Yep pretty crazy – I agree).”

Ok, but how does the broadcast rule apply to the movies you listed? Are you saying that none of them had a theatrical showing in Australia and that each of them was instead broadcast on television the same year that they were released?

Or are you saying that the +70 only applies to works made after 2005, so all those films only carried the original 50 year copyright?

Even if that’s true, it’s hard to believe that the various studios would allow their films to become public domain in Australia based on a technicality. In particular, I can’t see Disney allowing this to happen to any of its films.

“@Thomas Koltai – An excellent treatise on the mess that copyright represents both in Australia and overseas can be found here. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLRS/2008/51.html”

Thanks for the link. I did attempt to read it, but found it so dry that I was reaching for a soda every couple of words.

But I wrote about this a few months ago – The Real Value of a Movie is about 13 cents – where I said that vendors would start filling up hard-disks with large quantity of movies and selling them as part of a home cinema solution. Maybe not today – and possibly not quite tommorrow – but it’s coming – soon.

Generally,

For artistic works the period of protection is the creator’s life plus 70 years.
For sound recordings and film, copyright is 70 years from first publication.

Prior to 2005, Copyright in Australia was 50 years from first publication.

For broadcast signals copyright is 50 years from the first broadcast.

Therefore a film that is broadcast – and has been timeshifted – actually comes out of copyright – (providing it is the Broadcast copy distributed (e.g.: .ts) or a facsimile thereof – eg: H264 rip of time-shifted content) 50 years after it was first broadcast and not seventy years after it the death of the author or the Key Grip who may have advised on the correct way to shoot a scene. (Yep pretty crazy – I agree).

In the United States, regarding films first shown prior to March 1, 1989, notice of copyright (e.g., © 1941 by Thomas Koltai) was required on all published works. If the notice was omitted, or appeared in the wrong form or location, the work was automatically admitted into the Public Domain.
However, works published between January 1, 1978 and March 1, 1989 could remedy this problem if certain measures were taken.

And then we have the situation of Copyright agreements that do not include digital rights. i.e.: Mainly those prior to 1956 – but again different for many countries.

An excellent treatise on the mess that copyright represents both in Australia and overseas can be found here. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLRS/2008/51.html

I warn you – that attempting to read the linked document and following up all of the references will rob you of approximately theree weeks of your life – if you are really searching for an answer to the question:

How long is something in copyright for ? – Well in some cases not long at all…….
I blog about this one day soon – but it is a complicated issue. There are a myriad reasons why Films fall out of Copyright – not all of which are understood by non Copyrighted dedicated legal proffessionals. Believe me – I had to pay to get the knowledge that I have acquired.

According to various sources on the net, Plan Nine is already in the public domain. It can be downloaded from the Internet Archive.

“And there are 6,699 more titles coming out of copyright this year. I expect the P2P networks to start filling up with them —- not that there aren’t already a pile of good ones represented:”

How do you figure? According to everything I could find on the net, Australian copyright was for the life of the author plus 50 years, even if the original author was the employee of a corporation such as a film studio. The 50 years after first publication only applied if the work was first published after the author’s death. Regardless, the length of copyrights were extended to life plus 70 years by the US – Australia Free Trade Agreement in 2005. This was applied to all works by authors who died after 1956 and whose work was punlished during their lifetime. If they died after 1956 and the work was published after their death, then the copyright exists for 70 years from the date of first poublication.

Even if the original authors of all those films died in 1959, they will still be covered by copyright until 2029.

Here’s the main source I used;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_copyright_law

If this is wrong, please point me to a correct source of information.

“Sleeping Beauty[1959]DvDrip[Eng]-Stealthmaster.avi”

This is the surest sign that the copyrights on 1959 films aren’t going to expire any time soon. If a Disney film was really poised to become public domain in the near future, Disney would be fighting tooth and nail to have copyright terms extended another 20 years.

I love the title.

should take you as many years to download them as well Tom, with your ideology to throttle this sort of behaviour.