A discussion about public domain. And is content from Millcreek pd?
 

I would like to know what movies are legal to copy, distribute, broadcast (public domain).
Here are some problems I found. What version? What list? What source?

I often find differences in lists of movies, especially in year and duration. Many of the differences are one year. But as an extreme example:

Desert Island Films Drama-Comedy LASER MISSION 1990 83 C BRANDON LEE
Desert Island Films Horror-SCI-FI LASER MISSION 1982 C BRANDON LEE
Festival Films FFPDCatalog Laser Mission Action, Adventure, Crime 1989 USA-German-So. African 95M Brandon Lee, Ernest Borgnine, Debi Monahan, Werner Pochath, Graham Clarke

Everyone else I found says 1990. The website at public domain torrents only lists title.

And (List of films in the public domain in the United States from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) does not list Laser Mission (and many other pd movies). I guess the list is not complete?

Mill Creek Entertainment (and probably other distributors) distributes many public domain movies, and on the DVD with those movies it also displays a statement saying that is not legal to copy. Can someone please explain this paradox? I understand the menu is copyrighted, but the statement seems to imply the video content, VOB file.

And while on this subject, is all the content at archive.org legally public domain?

Re: A discussion about public domain. And is content from Millcreek pd
 

I realize this might not answer your question, but just in case it's useful, we have a related thread that might be of interest:

The Best Movies in the Public Domain

Re: A discussion about public domain. And is content from Millcreek pd
 

Thank you, that is a good start. Some people state their favorite pd movies there. The lists on some sites are spread too widely over many separate pages. I like single list that I can download in one click. So, I guess there is not one full official list. But I did find some good lists at Desert Island Films spreadsheet and Festival Films FFPDCatalog. That is an answer to my question of what list. Any more?

These questions have not been answered: What version? What source? Why are there different dates, and are they all pd? Is a pd movie still pd, no matter where I get it from?

And here are some other questions. I would like synopsis and script that I may copy and distribute, of the pd movies.

Re: A discussion about public domain. And is content from Millcreek pd
 

Yeah, I can't imagine there could be one "official list," since there's no governing body that would make it "official." Either an individual would compile it, unofficially, or not.

Re: A discussion about public domain. And is content from Millcreek pd
 

I have a couple of those Mill Creek sets and I think that their notice is about the disk, not the movie. You can probably get those movies in PD but the packaged product is copyrighted. By the way, the quality of those sets is pretty darn miserable, only fit for late night after too many beers.