How to Watch & Download Free Movies: Finding Public Domain Films Online

Any movie or book published from 1923 to 1963 goes into public domain 28 years after the date of publication. Originally it could only be renewed for 47 years. It has been increased to a renewal of 67 years. (Source: Lolly Gasaway, University of North Carolina. http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm). This mean that many of these works are now public property and can be reprinted and rebroadcast by anyone, without the permission of the original author and no royalty payments.

Classics such as The Little Rascals, Charlie Chaplin, Roy Rogers, The Contender and many more are free for the taking. Finding your favorite movie online is going to take just a little digging. You are going to find three types of sites. The first site is selling stock footage. The second type of site will either charge you a flat monthly fee or charge you to view the movie. The third site will allow you to view your favorite movie for free.

It may sound wrong that you have to pay for movies in the public domain. Because a movie has fallen into public domain, doesn't mean you can't still sell it. You can do what ever you want with it. You can sell it, reedit it, add voice over to it and you can even copyright your finished product. If you plan on mass producing a public domain movie for commercial purposes you should go to a stock footage company. They will sell you a copy of the movie that will produce the highest quality movie after it has been mass produced. They sell the movie by the foot. That is just the way Hollywood sell bulk footage and bulk film.

The subscription sites are just there for people who are too lazy to go to the free sites and download or view the movie themselves. Sites that sell subscriptions or download fees are perfectly legal and they get the movies from the exact same sites that this article will cover. In defense of those charging a fee, it cost money to run a website and if you are just looking for one hard to find title, you may do well to pay $9.95 to download a good copy of it. Make sure you can download the movie if you are paying a fee. Why are you paying just to watch it once? I'm going to show you how to do that for free.

Searching the Internet is getting harder and harder each day. Search engines place sites that pay a fee at the top of the list and at the bottom. So you may have to search a few pages to find what you want. I used Google and Yahoo to search for public domain movies. I got the best results when I used this key phrase; "free download public domain movie". I did get a few subscription sites, but the free sites were easy to find.

One of the easiest sites I've found is iMovies (http://imovies.blogspot.com/). It's actually a blog. It lists the movies according to the month they were posted to the blog. It has a search engine so you can find the movie you are looking for. I found John Wayne's 1947 film "Angel and the Badman", in the August 2005 section. I simply typed in John Wayne's to the search engine. I had to scroll down and look for it, but it took less then a minute. I had the option to watch it online or to download it to my computer. There was no registration to fill out, no user name to sign in with and no fees.

Another great site I found is Entertainment Magazine Online (http://emol.org/movies/freemovies.html). This site breaks the movies up into categories, so it's easier to find what you are looking for. EMOL also has offers several download options. Many sites also allow you to download these movies to your video iPod and PSP handheld units.

Because these movies are in the public domain, you can transfer them to a CD to save space on your hard drive. If you have a copy of Nero 6 or newer, you can transfer the movies that are in MPEG format to DVD format. This will not increase the quality. But you will be able to view it from most DVD players. If you are going to transfer the movie to DVD format, download the MPEG2 or higher format (if available). Also set the DVD output format to the highest quality. This will give you a good quality DVD. Nero 6 can transfer some formats of Quick Time (MOV) movies. Nero 6 can't handle real video format (.rm or .ram) movies. You will need a program to transfer real video format to an MPEG format before you transfer it to DV format.

Although you can sell copies of public domain movies, I wouldn't use footage you downloaded from the Internet. Spend the money to buy the better quality footage from a company that sells public domain stock bulk footage. If you are in doubt about whether or not something is in the public domain, you can go to the US Copyright Office website and look it up (http://www.copyright.gov/records/cohm.html).

Movies aren't the only works that have gone to the public domain. You can download music, books and even photos and artworks. Original artwork is sold through different channels and don't fall into this category, but you can reprint some artwork under the public domain laws. For example, you can walk up and take the Mona Lisa painting, but you can reprint it under public domain laws. Why do you thing there are so many prints of Shakespeare's plays in print. It's also why no one owns copyright to the Bible. People reprint it and copyright the retranslation with added comments. But the original King James Versions (KJV) and original manuscripts have all fallen into public domain as has most ancient religious documents.

Works created after 1964 are subject to new copyright laws, which extends copyright to the creators' life plus 70 years (so the creator's family can benefit from the copyrighted works). Corporate own copyrights for as long as 120 years under the new laws. So the Lord of the Ring original manuscripts will not go into the public domain until after 2061. It was first published in the United States in 1966. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (J. R. R. Tolkien) died September 02, 1973 based on copyright laws in effect when he first published Lord of the Rings.

Many are calling this the death of public domain. I don't see it as that extreme. I see it as keeping up with advancements in traditional publishing and electronic publishing. I've seen copies of the complete works of Tolkien for under $20.00. When the movie first came out the price skyrocketed, but now they can't give the book away. But for those hard to find oldies, public domain laws make it easy for you to view them without worries of law suite. So enjoy.