Copyright protection is more complicated than the 28+28 formula that Jeremy used to calculate copyright expiration. In 1962 when copyright revision first became an issue in Congress they passed a resolution freezing the expiration of any material whose copyright would expire that year (that is, material first copyrighted 1906 and renewed in 1934 under the old law). In the fourteen years it took to finally pass a law, the same resolution was kept in place, so that no copyright expired when it would have under the old law. To accomodate these copyrights the law provided for a term of 75 years from the date of original copyright. Thus anything copyrighted earlier than 75 years ago is clearly in public domain, available for use by anyone for any purpose. The copyright law provides for a new copyright for any substantial creative contribution to a work in public domain. Thus, the play OLIVER! is protected even though it is based on a work in public domain. You could, legally, write another play based on Dickens' work so long as it is based EXCLUSIVELY on the earlier work and does not include anything from the later, still copyrighted, play. This bit of legal logic explains why there are two productions of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. They are both based on the underlying book which is in public domain. This legal logic also explains why a color version of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE is protected by copyright while the black and white version is not. (For some reason, the original Liberty Company production was never copyrighted which threw it into public domain as soon as it was released.) The Ted Turner story is different. His firm owns the rights to the films they are colorizing. They become covered by a new copyright, but this is trimming; the original copyright for most of the MGM library is still in effect under the 75 year rule. If you really want further complications, many works copyrighted in the year before 1934 were not were not renewed at the expiration of the first 28 year term. My layman's interpretation of this fact is that works copyrighted before 1934 (that is, a 28 year term before the 1962 freeze) may be in public domain. Cal Pryluck <PRYLUCK@TEMPLEVM> Dept of Radio-Television-Film <[log in to unmask]> Temple University Philadelphia, PA 19122