I had a thought about maybe adding a few audio clips from movies in the playlist, so I asked Google for some Public Domain feature films about radio or radio stations. It listed numerous titles (the first 3 pasted below), but I had presumed it was only pre-1931 movies in public domain as it is with music, but all it listed was after 1931. So I asked about that and was surprised to realize that most movies 1930s-1950s are in the public domain! I remember (like 40yrs ago) buying 10 or 12 DVDs at a time at Walmart cause they were only about a dollar each and we didn't have cable and there was only 3 networks, so those old cheap movies were good entertainment. Now I understand why they were so cheap, they had no royalties to pay.
"It is a very common misconception that only movies made before 1931 are in the public domain! .. ... Because many studios went bankrupt, considered their old films worthless, or simply forgot to file the paperwork, the vast majority of films from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s never had their copyrights renewed. This is why famous later movies—like John Wayne's Angel and the Badman (1947) or Cary Grant's His Girl Friday (1940)—are legally in the public domain today."
- The Plot: An elite opera singer (Dorothy Dare) finds her career stalling and reluctantly transitions to commercial radio. She clashes with the station's producers when they pressure her to sing popular "swing" music instead of classical pieces.
- Why it matters: The film culminates in a studio variety program, offering a detailed visual representation of what a live 1930s radio station broadcast looked like behind the scenes.
- The Plot: A charismatic but overly confident young man from a small town (Ray Walker) heads to New York City determined to become a famous radio star. He achieves massive success on the airwaves, but his skyrocketing ego threatens to alienate his friends and family.
- Why it matters: It is an early look at the culture of instant celebrity created by the rise of national network broadcasting.
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- The Plot: Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope) is a popular Manhattan radio broadcaster who accidentally gets caught up in a murder misunderstanding and flees to Cuba. Together with an heiress, he ends up investigating a haunted castle.
- Why it matters: While it transitions into a horror-comedy, the opening act relies heavily on Lawrence’s profession as a radio commentator to drive the plot forward
The movie, but what about the music or songs that are in the movie? For example 1939s The Wizard Of Oz, my favourite movie of all time!(not about radio), could you take some songs from that and be public domain? Just an example.
@mark I could ask ai, but I think a response from Artesian would be more reliable since he's talked about it before (though not sure if he was being specific to Canadian laws). Maybe if the rendition in the movie was not the same as published by record companies - but I really don't know. But Artesian had researched it and spoke on it here before, I don't remember the details.
By the way, The Wizard of Oz was one of my prized 16mm film possessions when I was still in the hobby, I think I paid about $400 and it wasn't a perfect print, but it was complete and projected wonderfully sharp.