Public domain or owning copyright?

I was always under the impression that we were not to sell public domain footage here. It was a requirement for the artist to own copyright to the clips. It seems there is a significant amount of old "possibly" public domain footage that artists are now posting.
P5 what is your ruling on this?

Yes, thats right - at the moment we don't allow public domain work, unless it's integrated into something that is unique / copyrightable. However, we're thinking about options here, and might be changing the policy in the future.

You have quite a bit of public domain footage on here that could not possibly be owned by the artist, since some was taken before the artist was born and is still listed on other sites as public domain, thereby not something that was inherited from an estate. If you would like me to send examples to you in a less public way, I can.

Yes, if you come across any content that raises questions, shoot us a note at contact-at-pond5.com. Thanks.

I have for years now seen various stock houses (even pre-internet) sell so called public domain footage. According to what I have read at various places about this topic, it is legal to do so with true public domain footage. They consider it a fee for service of creating the compilations - nothing more, nothing less. For example, one is allowed to package up NASA footage that is public domain and charge for the "packaging up" - but you can never offer rights or a release to it as it will always stay "public domain". Hence, the technicality in most cases is that you must simply state that the footage is public domain. But you can charge for packing it up, and by definition, rendering it into a new codec qualifies for this. Ease of access would be my thought here, for the buyer. Convenience. - Is this accurate? All I can say is that many companies have done it, are doing it and continue to do it. Is there a "gotcha" involved? - That I don't know and time will tell. Perhaps this should be researched a bit more and could be used as a lost leader to attract more buyers? Convenience. Perhaps that is what it could be defined as. Just my 10 cents.

So do you think that a copy unaltered of the lunar landing, moon walks from NASA files etc are fair game? Not picking on anyone, just trying to get the laydown on right or wrong.

Right or wrong legally, I think it's ethically wrong to sell anything you didn't personally have a hand in creating. And I don't think anyone here has been in a spaceship. Maybe during the 70's smoking something.....
What I'm saying is if you're selling the original untouched video clip. Not as part of one of your videos.

Think about it this way, One guy downloads a public domain footage of the lunar landing and it sells. Then everyone downloads the same clip and sells it. Now you have 1500 or however many artists here selling the same footage.
Looks kind of foolish for the site.

I suppose one of the issues is that there is a lot of public domain footage that one can not easily find. And there are actual companies that specialize in exactly that - finding it and selling it. I agree with Jake - not my bag... unless I need to integrate it into something, and even then I would hesitate. But, it is true and many companies do it, they actually sell libraries of public domain stuff. That's all I am saying. Personally - I thought about it at one time. The reason: It was really difficult to find a particular clip. I figured others would have the same problem.. but then thought - I would rather shoot stuff myself (that was 10 years ago) - I actually spent over $500 for the frickin' thing as it was part of a library. Legally, I could clip out the library and re-sell it, but I just don't see the point. :)

I agree, this is an artist supplied stock site and using anything not made or shot by the artist makes this site something it is not.

OK Nasa is not actually PD, it is attribution, some rights are reserved. You have to credit Nasa to use it. Other than that it is free like public domain.

Not that attribution is ever enforced.

ALSO Ive got tons of PD stuff, if you name it I have it ;)