public domain footage?

This isn't specific to FCP, so I apologize if this is breaking any rules I haven't read.

Does anyone know where I can find info about what types of video footage (if any) is ok to use in my own work?

For example, I am making a marketing trailer for a product. They might want to show brief shots of famous historical events, like a president taking office.

Or, can anyone use the famous footage of the JFK assassination?

Any help or direction (besides "www.google.com" is appreciated.

Stock footage is widely available and can be quite pricey.

Here are a few links of places I have used.
www.artbeats.com
[www.thoughtequity.com]
[www.footagehouse.com]

Good Luck

www.archive.org - a treasure trove of FREE archive footage

here's the clickable linkArchive web site - free footage!

Here is a list of free stock footage:

[www.dvcreators.net]

Any government footage is public domain, you just have to pay a small copying fee.

Hi Josh:

I have worked on classic DVD titles for years where we acquire and license large amounts of stock footage and stock images. Not all government footage or stills are PD, many have estates of the artists who sometimes need to be approached for permission to reproduce. If you access the Library of Congress/National Archive Websites, you can research the provenance of many clips and stills.

This should be kept in mind especially for delivery to the studios, the lawyers at the studios have conditioned me for years on how picky and ultra conservative they can be. I would say that overall, your statement is correct but there are many collections at the National Archives that require additional permission to reproduce. Amazingly enough, even though images and footage are available from the government, much of the time the government will not certify that the work is clear for all forms of media or if the work is cleared at all, that burden often rests with the person or company using the work.

Also, I would say that depending on the type of usage, lawyers can be more or less picky about clearances.

1. Home Entertainment
If you are going to put material out on home video, this is the most problematic clearance by far. I have been shut down dozens of times on specific material clearances, the lawyers saying that they just "couldn't take a chance" only to see the exact same material air on a TV show the following week. If you or a studio are selling the material in a doc on home video, you had better make sure you have your "I"s dotted and your "T"s crossed.

2. Broadcast
The clearance standards in general for broadcast seem to be much looser than home video. You still must clear everything, but borderline cases seem to go through much easier than for home video. I have produced three episodes of A&E Biography and the clearances were a piece of cake for the most part, no Thompson and Thompson required as many of the studios require for home video, they pretty much took the licenses at face value and didn't sweat the details.

3. Theatrcial
The clearances for theatrical lie somewhere between broadcast and home entertainment. Once again, here you are selling the licensed piece in a larger product as in home video, not merely broadcasting it once and that seems to get the lawyers in much more of a tizzy about exposure.

4. Print
I write for a couple of magazines and so far, I have never been asked for a release. Not once. Very strange and I have even offered a photo release to the publishing company. So I guess that lawsuits for clearances for magazines must be very rare or the lawyers for the publishing companies that I write for would be more stringent. Keep in mind that the magazines I write for are pretty small circulation. If you are writing an article for Newsweek or Esquire, I would think that the clearance issues would be more stringent, but I don't know for a fact.

Hopefully this information has been of use to some of you. Legal clearances are a whole science unto themselves and while I have usually done the clearances for my own shows, there are many full time clearance people in LA and NY and in a few other large areas who do nothing but clearances and they make very good money doing it. I have hired them for larger projects I have produced and for $300.00 to $400.00 per day, they do all of the detective work, phone calls and negotiate license rates. Dealing with archival footage and images can be a nightmare and I encourage you if you have a decent budget, hire a clearance expert, they can make sure that all of this fine print gets read and reacted to and they can be the interface between you the producer and the rights holders as well as the studio lawyers.

Dan