Attack of the $1 DVDs

fm6 writes "The NY Times has an interesting piece on DVDs that sell for one or two bucks. Not all of them are crap -- apparently a lot of good movies never got copyrighted properly. But there's no silent movies ('not mass market'), or movies that aren't 'family friendly.' Here's what I find really interesting: none of the DVD companies mentioned in the article sell online -- it's all through discount bins in supermarkets and drug stores."

Comments

$1 for a DVD

[MyLongNickName]

Yet, I believe you'd find half of Slashdot gripe, and ask for the bittorent...

Shipping costs

[magarity]

none of the DVD companies mentioned in the article sell online -- it's all though discount bins

There's a simple reason for this. Most people will think, "Gee, I'd like to buy that for $1 online but I won't pay $2 for shipping and handling on something that only costs $1"

To sell online they need to bump the price up to $3 online to subsidize the shipping and nominally charge 50 cents to ship.

All soundtracks are copyrighted

[tepples]

But there's no silent movies ("not mass market"), or movies that aren't "family friendly".

Playback of silent movies on a DVD player needs a soundtrack. All sound recordings published from the invention of the phonograph until February 15, 1972, are restricted under state law copyright until December 31, 2067 (second source), and a bargain-basement DVD distributor such as DigiView doesn't have the resources to do its own dub job.

Re:They're public domain

[reallocate]

Slashdot is a bastion of cheapness cowering in a cloak of principle.

hold on now...

[Lord Bitman]

Okay, show of hands...
who thinks movies from 60 years ago should still have copyright protection?

I see.. the frozen hand of Walt Disney..
anyone else?

(please note I would be in favor of laws which change when the term of copyright /starts/)

Re:hold on now...

[swillden]

I see.. the frozen hand of Walt Disney..

Actually, I'm pretty sure Walt Disney would not raise his hand. It's his successors that want to own everything forever.

Works for me..

[pair-a-noyd]

I picked up a handfull of cartoons for my grandson and a handful of old B movies for myself at the local grocery store for a $1 each.
They sold out quickly. I hope they will get some more in and some new titles.
A $1 is a bargin and really what most of them are really worth.

When I was a kid, the ticket at the theater was about $1.50, that was in the 60's...

I've recently seen mention that the ticket to see a new movie is around $9.00 BS on that!
The only movies that have come out in the past 30+ years that were actually worth the trouble and expense to go and see were the LOTR movies and those didn't come out of Hollyweird, which explains why they were of good quality and good content.

No matter though, all the theaters in this area have gone out of business anyway. The nearest one is a 35 mile drive. With $9 to get in, $5 for a heatlamp special and $4 for a cup of ice with a splash of soda water, I can tell you this, I will never again go to a movie theater. Oh yeah, and of course there's the gas to drive there. At $2.5+ a gallon, I only drive when it's a life and death emergency..

IF, and that's a BIG IF, a decent movie ever comes out, I just wait for it to hit DVD and buy it then. I would rather spend $14-16 on it and have it to do with as I please than to spend $40+ to see it once in a room full of crying babies, kids acting up, people chatting on cell phones, etc...

Hollywood needs to get real. With the raping they keep putting on people at the ticket booth it's little wonder people pirate the movies. If they would cut the salaries of the fat cats at the top of the food chain in half and the self-important actors and actresses, that would be a step in the right direction.

But for now, $1 is more than a fair price..

Re:Works for me..

[Vellmont]

When I was a kid, the ticket at the theater was about $1.50, that was in the 60's...

$1.50 sounds to me like a lot of money in the 60s. Let's hop on over to http://www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm
and adjust that 1.50 into 2005 dollars.

You don't specify which year of the 60s you're talking about, let's do a range of years:

1960: $9.85
1965: $9.26
1969: $7.95

So that $1.50 movie in the 60s is about the same cost as it is now, after adjusting for inflation. People tend to forget the huge inflation that happened in the 1970s. Sure movies are more expensive, but people also make a lot more money to keep up with increased cost of living.

Some of the Highlights I've bought

[JoeCommodore]

Here are some I had found that were really good:

• Popeye Cartoons (there is a series of four discs, very good qulaity
• Santa Claus vs. the Martians (a true classic!)
• Off the wall and calssic horror movies - Bela Lugosi meets the Brooklyn Gorilla and other obvious 60s/70s schlock
• classics like Road to Bali and the Inspector General
• Some Little Rascals Episodes
• Three stooges cartoons (I haven't had the guts to grab those, they are pretty lame)

Everytime I see such a display I find it worth my tme.

Available at archive.org

[ppcvidz.com]

The majority of these titles are available at http://www.archive.org/details/feature_films . Additionally I've been distributing the MPEG2 format via Bittorrent at http://torrents.pdmdb.org/

Scanning a copy does not produce a new ©

[tepples]

I'm not really sure if this issue has ever been decided regarding video, but it's quite possible that the MPEG-2 stream could be claimed as copyrighted. When Penguin Books goes through, say, Great Expectations, and does layout, changes punctuation to match the American rules, etc. their version is copyrighted.

Not necessarily. From Copyright Office circular 14, with my emphasis:

To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a "new work" or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example, are not copyrightable.