If you've ever wondered why George A. Romero's
1968 horrror classic Night of the Living Dead seems to be
Everywhere why it's been remade and remixed so many times
Why references to the film seem to go beyond homage, and why it's playing in the background of nearly every low-budget indie horror film
That's because of a mistake made on this shot of the opening credits
and it's that one mistake that gave birth to an entirely new sub-genre of horror that would eventually grow into the
Multibillion-dollar zombie industry it is today. You see, prior to Romero's work zombies were very different from what we know now
Typically only found in Haitian voodoo folklore as living beings enslaved by a supernatural power
Ideas that were explored in the early 1940s with films like Jacques Tourneur's
I walked with a zombie. "Zombies to me were, you know, those boys in the Caribbean
Who you know do the wet work for Lugosi and I thought I was creating a completely new monster
You know the neighbors suddenly turned into
Flesh eaters ghouls and that's what I called them ghouls in the film
And I thought they were completely you know..." and after the film's released the ghouls became the new zombies and the new zombies
No longer belonged to Romero and that's due to the fact that under the old Copyright Act of 1909
This little symbol was the only thing standing between owning your work and not owning your work
Which is why nearly every film up into the late
1970s had that symbol clearly affixed to the title or credit sequence
Something that night of Living Dead does not and that's because after the film was completed
Romero's production company image 10 made a distribution deal with the Walter Reed
Organization who suggested that the title be changed to Night of the Living Dead from its original title Night of the Flesh-eaters
And this was to avoid confusion over Jack Curtis'
1964 film called the flesh-eaters Romero agreed and the name was changed
but the Walter Reed
organization mistakenly omitted the notice of copyright from the
revised title card and under the Copyright Act of 1909 the first public display of your work without the symbol word or
abbreviation of copyright and the year of publication
meant that you lost your
Copyright forever and the work becomes part of the public domain and those requirements were stripped back under the Copyright Act of 1976
But Night of the Living Dead was released eight years before those laws went into effect
But the film's entry into the public domain became the ultimate
Distribution tool by virtue of the fact that it was openly available for every theater
UHF station and video store to license for free and its ubiquity led to zombie movies becoming the dominant
genre for low-budget independent film. Night of the Living Dead provided a template for young aspiring filmmakers to follow and
Expand on one of the few entries into the public domain that was still fresh and ready to be explored. If Romero's copyright mistake had
Been caught before distribution he would not had only retained the rights to his film
But also have exclusive rights to the idea of the zombie as we know it today the concept of a slow-moving
Flesh-eating ambulatory corpse would have been protected as his intellectual property even though Romero didn't originally create the zombie
He gave them a distinct set of rules and physical attributes and alterations to existing work within the public domain can be protected under copyright
You can see this type of copyright protection being enforced through Universal with Frankenstein's monster when most people think of Mary Shelley's
Classic creature the image that probably comes to mind is Boris Karloff's green skin flattop skull
Protruding forehead and bolted neck but the description of the character in Shelley's original novel was much more vague describing only a yellow skinned
Man with black hair and lips and even though Frankenstein has been in the public domain for over a century
Universal still holds exclusive rights to those alterations made for James Wales film in
1931 and the threat of copyright infringement
Looms over anyone outside of Universal wanting to adapt that character universally even filed suit against Mad Magazine for this cover from
1964 asking for an injunction against further distribution and
250 dollars for each individual infringement as well over a million copies being sold and
Pricey legal battles like that or like Christopher Lee as Frankenstein's monster and hammers
1957 retelling looks so much different
And why I Frankenstein has just aaron eckhart with scars
Romero could have easily had a similar
stranglehold on zombies as
Universal does with its monsters and had not been for that initial copyright mistake the 1909 Act allowed for protection for a period of 28
Years from the date of publication with an option of renewal for a second term of equal value which meant that
1968's matter of living dead wouldn't have been submitted into the public domain
until 2024 and with the Mickey Mouse effect on copyright extension
There's a possibility zombies could have stayed out of the hands of the public for many more years
After that which would mean no Shaun of the Dead no thriller no Resident Evil and no Game of Thrones
Every zombie film television show video game and comic can be directly traced back to George Romero Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman
Even originally intended his book to be titled Night of the Living Dead because he assumed the name recognition would boost sales
And he was free to do so because the film is in public domain and I think that's what makes Romero's work so special
Even in a sea of copycats with every up-and-comer using his intellectual property as their own
He was still able to tell original thought-provoking stories that stood out from the rest
Right until the end and to this day the three best zombie films continued to be Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead so if you haven't seen the masterpiece that started at all you can watch it online
Download it for free even packaged and resell it if you like
So go share it dub it remix or remake it learn from it get inspired and make Romero's hard work, worthwhile
And if you'd like to learn more about copyright law I'd recommend checking out
Information doesn't want to be free laws for the internet age from this week's sponsor
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