« Creativity, control and revenue
Process over reason »
h1

Derivative Works

December 22nd, 2002

It turns out that Republic Pictures owned the original story upon which “It’s A Wonderful Life” is based, plus much of the music in the movie. It’s on that basis that in 1993 they began to excercise copyright control over the movie which had for twenty years been considered by all to be in the public domain.

It still says a lot that the movie only got its wings when freely distributed, and is now much less available.

Here are some relevant links:

http://www.reelclassics.com/Movies/Wonlife/wonlife-article2.htm

http://articles.dhwritings.com/c02.html

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies/wonderful_life.html

http://www.film-center.com/canishow.html

Comments are closed.