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Poster:	larus	Date:	June 04, 2012 09:18:59am
Forum:	feature_films	Subject:	Re: The Scarlet Letter has been claimed

The film seems to have been out of copyright since 1962.

Here is the initial registration:
THE SCARLET LETTER. 1934. 8 reels, sd.
From the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Credits: Supervision, Larry Darmour;
director, Robert G. Vignola; screenplay,
Leonard Fields, David Silverstein; film
editor, Charles Harris.
© Maj'estic Producing Corp.; 15Nov34;
LP5149.

Based on the registration date, the copyright should have been renewed between November 15 1961 and November 15 1962.
However, there is no renewal in the Motion Pictures and Filmstrips Catalog of Copyright Entries for 1961 (page 124), 1962 (p44 for January-June and p104 for July-December) or even 1963 (p61 for January-June and p125 for July-December).
Well-known public domain distributor Alpha Video also offers it on DVD, which confirms the PD status of the film.

Independent-International Pictures is not one of the usual copyright hijackers but a legitimate film distributor specialized in exploitation films. As explained in this interview with founder Sam M. Sherman, the Scarlet Letter became the first film to be distributed by the company after Sherman acquired the 35mm prints for it in 1964 to reissue it in theaters.

It could be an honest mistake where the company fed its entire portfolio into youtube's content-id system without paying attention to expired copyrights. Or the company might feel that their ownership of the 35mm prints should make them the only distributors and is abusing the content-id system to enforce an invalid claim.

This post was modified by larus on 2012-06-04 16:18:59

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Poster:	bullie89	Date:	June 04, 2012 09:30:54am
Forum:	feature_films	Subject:	Re: The Scarlet Letter has been claimed

Thank you so very much for the research. I will file a complaint for this. The film has been restored beautifully and I am quite certain they do not have the Video Cellar's version as they just released it a few weeks ago. This is so frustrating. That bogus Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society is claiming music in Hi Diddle Diddle with Martha Scott. They usually release their claim immediately. Why does YouTube not have a list of the truly false claimants? I will send them the list as I have friends that are meeting new ones all the time. However, I doubt they will do a thing about it.

Again, thank you so very much for the research!