Do Fans Have Rights In Films?

Who really owns a film? The legal rights are clear: the producer of the film owns the legal rights and can do anything they want with it. They can show it, sell it, change it, colorize it, or even destroy it. . . legally. But do the fans have rights in it too?

This issue has come to the forefront because of the Star Wars saga. Star Wars is an iconic film (three actually) and really changed the world in many ways -- but suffice it for our purposes to say that millions of people fell in love with Star Wars and it has great cultural influence. So George Lucas should be congratulated and heartily thanked.

But in 1997, George did an evil thing. He released revised versions of these films which were an atrocity. I won’t go into all the details here or the fact I think Lucas did this with the intent of upsetting fans. What matters is that he ruined the original films. But who cares? He can make as many versions as he wants and we can ignore all those versions and stick with the originals, right? Actually no. At the same time Lucas released his new versions, he declared that he would never let the originals be seen again. And to this day, he has done his best to make that happen.

So does he have the right to do this? I’m a firm believer in property rights, but I don’t think he does. Here’s why.

Lucas created an iconic film. This is as much a part of the history of film and a pillar of our culture as Casablanca or Citizen Kane. To allow him to suppress the original version, the version that became iconic, to keep it from being seen and to replace it with his idiotic, ADD-riddled second version would destroy that part of film history and make that part of our culture inaccessible. It would be like letting someone purchase all the rights to the Mona Lisa, and then declaring that the image could only be used if Mona was first given a clown nose. We would never let that happen to a cultural treasure like the Mona Lisa, so why should we let it happen to an equally influential film?

Even our copyright law acknowledges the public's interest because it allows creators to claim the rights for only so long before they enter the public domain. Though, thanks to our idiot Congress, we no longer can rely on copyright law to help us in this. Copyrights were originally 14 years. This was expanded to 28 years in 1790. Then it became 56 years. Today, they run for the life of the creator plus 70 years (for anything created after 1978). Does that seem right? It doesn't to me. That means a thirty year old filmmaker who lives to be 100 could effective tie up their film for 140 years. . . until 2151 if they produced the film today.

I certainly respect the filmmaker's right to benefit from and control their own creation. And that typically includes the right to use or not use the property as the owner sees fit. But I also abhor waste. And I see it as wasteful to let someone suppress art.

I tend to see art as something different from regular property as it is societal in nature, i.e. it derives its value from being observed by society. When an artist offers that to the public it becomes part of the culture and I think they should not be allowed to take it away again. I'm not saying we shouldn't let them exploit it and profit from it, but I do have a problem with them simply refusing to release it just as I would have problems with a drug company refusing to release a vaccine. It is bad for society to let ideas be suppressed.

But this raises some obvious questions. For example, what becomes a cultural icon and what doesn’t? Or should we skip that question and just disallow the suppression of any film or any book by its owner? And if we don’t allow such suppression, what obligations would we place on the owner to make it accessible to the public? If George Lucas refuses to put it on BluRay, can we force him to do that? Can we say that others have that right if he won’t?

That's actually what I would suggest. It really doesn’t give me any heartburn to shorten copyrights again to a reasonable period, like 40 years, and require that those copyrights be used or sacrificed, i.e. use it or lose it. That way, George would be free to use the films as he saw fit, with the one exception that if he tried to bury the originals, then someone else could come along and release them.

Thoughts?