subject: What Do You When You're On The Hunt For A Classic Film And Can't Find It Anywhere? [print this page] Wanna know a secret? I love action moviesWanna know a secret? I love action movies. I love watching things blow up on the screen. I love watching people on horseback chasing down spacecraft. I love watching people get sucked into video games. But when given the choice between curling up with the latest Hollywood hottie and settling in with a classic film, I'm just as likely to opt for the classics.
Am I a film buff? I don't think I'd go that far. The classics I've seen to date have all been pretty mainstream. Casablanca. Romance on the Orient Express. The Maltese Falcon. But that doesn't stop me from getting excited when I stumble across them. Or when I stumble across websites taking advantage of the fine print in copyright laws to bring films out into the public domain.
What Does It All Mean?
Believe it or not, there are websites out there specializing in digging out classic films that have found their way out onto the public domain (more on that in a second) and shooting them out into the public eye so that film buffs (and semi-film buffs like me) have a place to go to find the films that we haven't heard about since we were listening to the radio in our grandparents' kitchen because they didn't have a TV yet.
The really cool thing about the new-found power of the public domain isn't just that it's reintroducing you to all of the films you and your parents loved when you were a kid. It's also giving you the opportunity to introduce your kids to something outside of the realm of Twilight and The Hunger Games.
What Can the Classic Movies Possibly do for your Kids?
With the huge number of films that Hollywood releases every year, you could reasonably ask, Why do I care whether my kids get to see the classics or not? Isn't it enough that they're going to slog through thousands of pages of classic literature in high school before it's all said and done? Now I have to worry about forcing them to sit through ancient films too?
Alright, so if you're interested enough in classic films to be checking this article out you probably aren't asking yourself any of those questions. Why? Because you know what it is about classic films that's so amazingly awesome. It's the fact that when they were made film makers didn't have all of the tools at their disposal that they have now. If you'll remember, early movies had neither color nor sound, much less giant walking robots. As a result, script writers, directors and actors had to work three times as hard to bring their ideas to life.
What these film makers gave us was entertainment as an art form. An art form that made us think thoughts that never struck us before, just like classic literature does.
So What's the Big Deal with Public Domain?
Ah, the last big feature of this whole classic film on the web thing. The fact that they're out playing in the public domain.
Public domain is where films go when either they're not eligible for copyright protection or their copyright has expired, and the lack of distribution restrictions makes it much, much easier for lovers of classic film to get their hands on the motion pictures they've been waiting for.
