2008/9/8 WJhonson@aol.com:
You are not addressing my point. I did not say "reject" statute law. My point is that we cannot add interpretations to statute law except based on case law.
How much say Freedom of panorama caselaw do you think there actually is?
Many if not most questions about copyright, like this one, are not specifically addressed in statute law. It is rather case law that is interpreting what "published" means, what "product" means, what "derivative" means, and so on.
No because the way that trailers are distributed fits an established method of publishing (mostly you would hit issues with trailers only shown at festivals but that isn't relevant for the stuff we are talking about) derivative isn't relevant because the trailers were not made by a third party (if they were there are potential issues but otherwise we fall in line with Letter Edged in Black Press, Inc. v. Public Building Commission of Chicago). "product" isn't a legal term relevant to the issue.
So we cannot address the question of whether trailers are the same or a different product, since this is not addressed directly in statute law, but only addressed or partially addressed in case law.
In that case, I would lean toward adding no additional interpretations on our part, and letting the case law determine the situation.
There is no additional interpretation. As statute law is written screen shots of trailers published before their respective films without copyright notices are PD. There are some possible exceptions but given what we use them for we are unlikely to trigger them (say a copyrighted painting appeared in the trailer).