Comments on: Alfred Hitchcock: The Legend Begins, Disc 1

By: walt

walt — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:38:26 +0000

And I have no problem with that recommendation. With MCE, you do get what you pay for, typically VHS-quality transfers, some worse, some better.

By: Dave Pattern

Dave Pattern — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:25:57 +0000

That’s fair enough Walt, and I apologise profusely if you feel I’ve made any unfounded allegations (I felt the deleted links to the documents on the U.S. Copyright Office provided suitable evidence) or if I’ve used your blog as a soapbox.

However, I would still encourage anyone wishing to find pristine transfers of Hitchcock’s early films to seek out the 3 disc set from Lionsgate, which uses source material licensed from Studio Canal.

By: walt

walt — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:54:34 +0000

Without getting into a discussion of “retroactive crime”–which is what you have, at least potentially, with “restored copyright”:

I simply will not allow this venue to be used for assertions of illegal activity, unless the assertions include direct links to authoritative claims of such illegal activity.

I don’t see any such links here, and have therefore removed the paragraph. To be blunt, if you want to accuse a company of copyright infringement without direct evidence, use your own blog.

By: Dave Pattern

Dave Pattern — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:34:05 +0000

Hi Walt

Darn it — it look me ages to write that deleted comment!

I certainly wouldn’t claim to be an expert on US copyright and the Public Domain, but everything in the comment was based on corroborated research and discussions with both the respected film historian Robert A. Harris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Harris) and a representitive of Canal+ Image UK .

As the films are no longer in the Public Domain in the UK, the combination of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act and the resulting US copyright restoration which occured on 1st Jan 1996 means that the same applies to the USA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URAA).

[Paragraph removed by wcc, as it still makes claims of illegal activity without providing a direct link to such claims. This is simply not the right place to make such claims.]

I too give the company credit for releasing PD material, but Hitchcock’s British films will not be in the PD again in either the UK or the USA until at least the year 2050.