Licensing Christmas Classics

[Armand Daiguillon]

Stuff like that is readily available to the public since its broadcast free every year ..... personally I would not attempt to license this.
Simply treat this as a private theater rental where you just provide a dvd player and they play "whatever they want".
You don't need to "know" what they are or are not playing. They are simply renting the space to watch something they "own themselves".
Take yourself and licensing out of the equation.

[Dennis Benjamin]

I've had people rent out an auditorium for a private rental and play the Blu-Ray of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". They then played a Blu-Ray of some other Halloweenish type movie (Ghostbusters or something). Since it was a private rental, I didn't ask questions.

This reminds of one of my "Movie theatre stories" from 1997 when I worked in Miami:

I had a group request an auditorium rental involving a 16mm projector. They paid us to secure the projector and they paid my projectionist to run their movies (he was a former military guy who was a projectionist in the army). They brought the reels with them. I remember having to go find an empty 16mm reel to take up the films as they didn't bring an empty one.

It turns out they were watching old Nazi propaganda films. I don't know if it was for research or what. My projectionist almost walked out on the job that day. When I mentioned it to my boss, he said "They rented the auditorium out for a private rental, they can watch what they want". That always stuck with me. Luckily I never had anyone watch questionable films since then.

[Martin McCaffery]

It's unlikely you will ever get caught letting your theatre be used to show unlicensed films, but that does not mean you are not liable if caught.
Nazi films, copyright wise, are not likely a problem. Ghostbusters could get you in trouble.
Renting a theatre for a private showing of copyrighted material is still a violation, whether the renter owns the DVD or not.
Just to put it in perspective, what if the renter had a private showing to which he invited 200 of his closest friends?

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's unlikely you will ever get caught letting your theatre be used to show unlicensed films, but that does not mean you are not liable if caught.
Nazi films, copyright wise, are not likely a problem. Ghostbusters could get you in trouble.
Renting a theatre for a private showing of copyrighted material is still a violation, whether the renter owns the DVD or not.
Just to put it in perspective, what if the renter had a private showing to which he invited 200 of his closest friends?

I think in the latter example, a private showing of a copyrighted work, there is some ongoing discussion of who is liable in such cases (the theater owner, the renter or both) and there seem to be differences between jurisdictions. The "no questions asked" approach might not always keep you (as in the theater owner) away from harm.

[Mike Blakesley]

I've gotten into more than one "discussion" with a private show patron who says "why do I have to pay film rent when I own the blu-ray?" After I explain it to them, sometimes they're OK with it, but I suspect sometimes they think I'm just doing a cash grab. Whatever, they can think what they want to think, but we don't do unlicensed shows at all unless we're watching something ourselves. (I figure owning a theater should come with SOME perks!)

[Martin McCaffery]

I just tell them "You know that FBI warning on the front of the DVD? That's what it means."

[Leo Enticknap]

Nazi films, copyright wise, are not likely a problem.

In the USA, no. I've forgotten the legal chapter and verse, but IP seized in wartime automatically enters the public domain in most circumstances, in the same way that IP created by the federal government does. There is a DVD publisher that specializes in Nazi propaganda films. I saw quite a few of their VHS releases when I took a class on Nazi cinema as a student in the early '90s: most appeared to be sourced from dupey, scratchy old 16mm prints. The slightly scary thing for me is that there is clearly a significant market for Nazi propaganda movies, as in, people who buy them for entertainment: I find it hard to believe that this business is sustainable through sales for educational use alone.

What I find even more surprising is that a group of people were willing to spend good money renting a theater to see that crap. My memory of studying it is that most Nazi propaganda features fell into one of two categories: military campaign documentaries (e.g. Sieg im Westen, Feldzug in Polen), the footage for which was shot by newsreel cameramen sent to the front along with the soldiers (a hilarious parody of which can be seen in Inglorious Basterds), and weepie melodramas with a plot along the lines of: blond, blue-eyed Aryan virgin is seduced by slimy non-Aryan guy (often Jewish, as in Jud Süß, but sometimes Eastern European, as in Die Goldene Stadt), much wackiness ensues, and things don't end well for either of them, obviously. Not only are they poisonous and nasty propaganda, but badly acted and directed, predictable, and boring, IMHO. The 1943 Nazi Titanic is worth a look, though, if only because it's so crude and ham-fisted as to be unintentionally very funny.

In Germany, the government retains ownership of the copyright to almost all the movies made during the Nazi period, and administers them through a government-owned distributor, Transit Film. It's actually a criminal offense to screen Nazi propaganda movies, or even clips from them, without their permission and outside approved educational settings.

[Jim Cassedy]

<edited quote> This reminds of one of my "Movie theatre stories" from
1997 when I worked in Miami - - - - I had a group request an auditorium rental - - -
- It turns out they were watching old Nazi propaganda films.
- - I don't know if it was for research or what.

OMG! Your story triggered a memory I'd almost forgotten about. My story is about 10yrs earlier than
yours- - and happened around 1987. A theater in town had gotten a similar request from someone
about wanting to run "some old Nazi films" (in 35mm) privately, for himself, and maybe 1 or 2 other
people. The theater was very uneasy with the request, but they knew I had a 35mm projection set up
at home, and, with my permission, they gave him my contact info. I spoke to him on the phone, and
he seemed to know a bit about film, and had, at one time, had some connection with the Air Force.
( I later found out he had flown in the Korean War, and his dad was a flyer in WWII) He didn't seem
like a "Nazi Nut" and after getting assurances from him that the prints weren't nitrate, I agreed to let
him come & screen a few reels at my house. What he brought were some Nazi films that had been
captured by the US Government and re-printed and translated with English language narration and
subtitles, shortly after the war. They were mostly 2000ft reels, and all had "US ARMY" or US AIR
FORCE" leaders on them, and appeared to have been used for some type of training or "military
public education" in the early 1950's. He was some sort of military film collector, and had a lot of
16mm stuff in addition to these 35mm films, which he said he had never seen, although he was
a bit evasive about exactly how he acquired them. He always arrived wearing a business suit,
sans necktie, and took copious notes on pads of paper he had brought with him. If I were
casting a movie, I would have had him play a college professor, as he seemed dressed for the
part, although, as it turned out he was actually a mid-level executive for a large SF company.

When he found out my 35mm projector could run in reverse, he'd sometimes ask me to run the
film back a few feet or run a section several times, so he could try and identify some particular
German aircraft or location. He came to my house, maybe a total of 3 times and had asked me
if he could come back a 4th time, to re-run a couple of the reels for "some military buddies" but
that never happened. He paid me extremely well for these private shows, although at first I felt
bit uneasy about taking any of his money. But, once I realized that it seemed he was approaching
this from a totally technical and historical perspective, I was OK with getting paid. (Had it been
any other way, I was prepared to politely "call it quits" and return his money.) Of course, all this
happened before the the internet was ensconced in our lives, but years later I did some online
research and found out that he was, indeed, from a military family, and his dad had earned
several battle ribbons in WW II . Several years later, I stumbled on an advertisement he had
put in THE BIG REEL in which he was selling off a lot of "military films". -
( All 16mm - - the 35mm's weren't among them)