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Space History Footage In HD
The Discovery Channel has done a deal with NASA to enhance old film footage from the space program up to the standards of HD. Discovery will air, in HD, a 6-part special called "When We Left Earth," beginning June 8. Judging by the trailer it should be pretty spectacular, a good introduction to the wonders of space exploration for a new generation. After the show airs, NASA gets the improved footage for their archives.
After you get used to seeing those clips from old, battered & faded prints, it's remarkable to see them cleaned up, corrected and smoothed out. Like getting used to seeing old faded color prints in an album, and then suddenly they look like recent shots. Almost like a time machine.
I'm really looking forward to this.
No, what it means is, NASA gives The Discovery Channel permission to wander through their current archives, enhance what they need/want to to make their documentary video, and NASA gets an improved version of some of their (already archived) footage, at no, or little expense to NASA... this saves NASA having to do it themselves.
Much like BearRanger said (up there ^) It's a win-win all around...
The way I understand it, the majority of NASA's work is placed in the public domain. If the Discovery Channel is giving NASA a copy of their restored HD footage for their archives, will this copy be public domain as well, or will it remain under the copyright of the Discovery Channel?
'So the raw act of cleaning the footage probably didn't add copyright, but all of the other stuff did. (Performing color balancing and other tasks other than pure physical 'cleaning' of the film stock.)'
I've been wondering how this sort of thing affects audio recordings. Here in the UK, we're in the interesting position of having a 50 year limit on recording copyright, and there are several companies that do a very good job of restoring and re-releasing out of copyright material (often better than the major labels that continue to sell overpriced and poorly transferred CDs of 'their' artists). Some of this material is still very marketable (e.g. classical and jazz from the 50s), and will soon include major artists/cash cows from the 60s (early Beatles records in 2013). Reputable companies that lack access to the masters will usually try to get hold of the best preserved publicly released vinyl or shellac discs they can find and restore from them. Less reputable companies casually 'pirate' the CDs released by the restorers, avoiding the substantial amount of work that goes into a typical restoration. The legality of the latter seems to be something of a grey area, at least in the UK:
http://www.copyright.mediarights.co.uk/
'It is debatable as to whether merely removing "clicks and crackle" from an old record would [establish a new copyright claim]...It is possible, however, that the creative use of equalisation or special effects...or even the making of an analogue to digital transfer, might well be sufficient...Currently there is evidence that some commercial re-issues of restored public domain sound recordings are being openly pirated, perhaps on the assumption that no copyright can exist in these copies...[this] has yet to be tested in the courts.'
It'll be interesting to see how this pans out in a few years time, when people start openly posting mp3s of Beatles albums on UK sites, selling cheap compilations in Asda, and distributing lovingly restored audiophile transfers from the original vinyl (as already happens illegally). Will there be legal moves to block international distribution (e.g. to the US, where the recordings will still be in copyright)? Will (as I assume) the current CD transfers from the 80s still be judged to be in copyright? Is the recent (and yet to be released) remastering (/remixing?) project from the original masters basically a ploy to extend copyright on the 'definitive' versions by another 50 years?
It's actually going to probably be 30% less! In order to go wide screen, the footage will probably be letterboxed, as the footage was probably shot in 4:3.. so they will have to cut out to top and bottom parts to give us the widescreen format!
Right?
The question is whether enhancing a work without adding any creative information makes it a new work. Obviously, in the case under discussion, the film footage was all taken by NASA. All the Discovery Channel is doing is running it through a few computers. Can this be considered art? If I write a computer program that makes random art, can I claim copyright on the art that the computer creates? Certainly, the computer has no rights, but is a creator of a program entitled to copyright the program's output?
My program automagically turns Public Domain books into a collection of HTML documents. Am I entitled to copyright Public Domain works after they have been run through my program? I expended time and effort writing the program.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.