First Few Doctor Who Episodes May Fall To Public Domain Next Year

First time accepted submitter wmr89502270 writes "Doctor Who is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The special The Day of The Doctor will be broadcast simultaneously in over 75 countries and hundreds of cinemas in the UK. Across the world the hotly anticipated special episode will be screened simultaneously in full 3D. According to Copyright law of the United Kingdom, the copyright in a broadcast program expires 50 years from the end of the year in which it is broadcast, which means the first episodes will fall to public domain next year."

Comments

Of course the actual copies existing is in doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you BBC beancounters. Thrifty today is costly tomorrow.

BBC's most effective copyright strategy in effect.

[robbak]

Namely, destruction of all extant copies.

BBC destroyed the only copies of most of those episodes decades ago. The only existing copies are some that were sent overseas and temporarily lost, so they were not recovered and destroyed. Others only exist in the form of home-made speaker-to-microphone reel-to-reel audio tapes.

Re:BBC's most effective copyright strategy in effe

[Lirodon]

Namely, destruction of all extant copies.

BBC destroyed the only copies of most of those episodes decades ago. The only existing copies are some that were sent overseas and temporarily lost, so they were not recovered and destroyed. Others only exist in the form of home-made speaker-to-microphone reel-to-reel audio tapes.

Actually, "wiping" was a rather common practice for every broadcaster back then. Tape was expensive, etc.

Re:BBC's most effective copyright strategy in effe

[BigBadBus]

Episodes from Tom Baker's era onwards exist in their entirety. The catalogue of stories from before this is rather patchy, and I've put a list of what exists and what doesn't on my website (though you'll need to make sure Javascript is running to see the what the key of icons represents.)

Interestingly, when the "junking" of old Dr.Who episodes stopped in 1978, both the stories you cite ("Tomb" and "War Games") were either missing completely or the majority of episodes had gone; obviously they have since been recovered (the missing "War Games" episodes from the British Film Institute in 1979 and "Tomb of the Cybermen" from Hong Kong in 1991.)

Re:Although I must add...

[Half-pint HAL]

If you can copy it in the UK, then you have a valid legal copy there. Are you allowed to bring your valid legal copy into the US? If so, then it's in PD in the US, in that anyone can go to the UK, print 10,000 copies, and bring them back, right?

No. There's a legally-recognised difference between importing for personal use and importing for resale.

See also controlled medicines, alcohol and tobaco.

Re:Although I must add...

[TheRaven64]

The Berne Convention says (warning: massive simplifications ahead) that each signatory must treat works copyrighted in other territories as if they were copyrighted in their own territory. That means that if something is copyrighted in the UK, then it is subject to UK copyright law in the UK, but if you are in the USA then it is subject to US copyright law. This means that it can be in the public domain in one place, but not in another.