Eli5 if the nosferatu movie is now public domain why does it need to be rented to be seen are you still able to make money off things after they are public domain?
In: 19
When something is copyrighted, all that means is if the one who holds the copyright spots you making a copy and giving it to someone else, without their express permission to do so, they can point and shout, “POLICE! THEY’RE STEALING MY WORK!”, and government-funded police will be compelled to stop you, and slap you with an appropriate punishment.
When a work is in the public domain, it means no one has that kind of legal right. You can do whatever the flip you want with it and no one (as far as the law is concerned) can stop you. That includes packaging it up and trying to sell it to people who you think will pay money for it.
A streaming service or a movie rental store asks you to pay not because they have any kind of copyright on the film itself, but because they are operating the infrastructure that it takes to deliver the movie to you on-demand, and they want to be compensated for keeping that running.
Tap water is free (or nearly free, to some extent) and you can get it in all sorts of places at any time, but sometimes you may be willing to shell out cash for a bottle of water filled from that same tap. You’re not paying for the water, per se, you’re paying for the service of someone going to a place where there is water to be found, putting it into a convenient hand-sized container, and bringing it to where you are now.
Latest Answers