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#1
DVD Legitimacy
I have been considering buying a complete set of all 558 episodes of "Death Valley Days", but when I asked the vendor about their legitimacy, I never received a response.
Going through their FAQ, I found the following:
I did Google on this a bit, but what I found was unclear. So far as I have found, DVDs of this series are somewhat rare, and very limited in episodes. This leaves me wondering if the Berne Act was referring to films unreleased in the US in general, or just those unreleased in DVDs?Some of these DVD's haven't even been released yet. How is it possible that you sell them?
There is a section of the American copyright law known as "The Berne Act" that Clearly states: films unreleased in the United States, including original versions of films altered and/or edited for release in the United States, are NOT protected by American copyright; thus, they are considered public domain. The entire purpose of our website is to provide otherwise unavailable films or television shows to the serious collector.
I was under the impression that the copyright to all of the episodes of the series were still currently owned by US Borax, or whatever they are called now.