Public Domain Welles Movies - Which ones are still public domain?

[bactor]

I was curious what Welles titles are still in the public domain. If anyone has any information on what titles are still left, I'd very much appreciate it. Thanks.

[Roger Ryan]

I believe "The Stranger", "The Trial" and the butchered American release of "Mr. Arkadin" are the only Welles-directed films in the pubic domain, along with "The Hearts Of Age" if you're counting that one. I'm sure there's a handful of films that Welles has appeared in only as an actor that are in the public domain, but I have no idea how many. The rights to "The Third Man" were in the public domain for a long time; I'm not sure if they've been renewed recently or not.

[bactor]

Thanks. I knew about The Stranger, but was unsure about The Trial. I really appreciate your response.

[Kevin Loy]

Well, I've always assumed that The Trial was in the public domain...and personally speaking, I really hope that it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XovTKY6M-XE

(note: using footage from "The Trial" wasn't really my idea...)

and re: Roger's comments about the public domain status of an item, unless I'm mistaken, an item cannot have its copyright "renewed" once it falls into the public domain unless it was previously registered (US copyright law), which is part of why the public domain status of The Trial has always baffled me (the only thing I can guess is that the Salkinds didn't formally register the film anywhere). Regarding "The Third Man", what probably fell into the public domain was the alternate US version of the film, and if the European version of the film was registered in the states as well, then the US version would be seen as a derivative work and would fall under the same copyright (once again, I don't claim to be an expert on copyright law, so please correct me if I'm wrong).

[Tony]

What happens if you release a different version- say, Beatrice's Othello, or the 1998 Touch of Evil: can you copyright them as different works of art? So: if someone were to find the audio for the cut scene of K talking to the programmer and add that scene to the Trial, and cleaned up the sound and picture, could they copyright it as a different picture?

[Kevin Loy]

First things first, applying for a copyright registration on any work requires that you are either the author/creator, that it was a work-for-hire made for you, or that you otherwise own the rights to the work.

If you were copyrighting *just* the cut scene, and if it had not previously been registered, then you could copyright it as a new work. If you are talking about inserting the scene into the pre-existing film and you owned the rights, you could re-register the work, provided that the original was registered and that you describe how the new version differs from the old version. If, by some fluke, you owned the rights to just the cut scene and not the film itself, you could register it as a derivative work, since it integrates material from somebody else's copyright (once again, you'd have to describe how it uses said materials).