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26 Clev. St. L. Rev. 547 (1977)
The Film Collector, the FBI, and the Copyright Act

handle is hein.journals/clevslr26 and id is 561 raw text is: THE FILM COLLECTOR, THE FBI, AND THE COPYRIGHT ACT FRANCIS M. NEVINS, JR.* W E ARE PRESENTLY IN THE early middle stages of a media revolution which will reach its climax when films, in one form or another, will be found in people's homes and under consumers' control in much the same way as books and phonograph records. Although the availability of home videotaping equipment represents a giant step forward in the pro- cess, the revolution began long before the invention of the Betamax. For well over twenty years hobbyist film collectors, currently between 20,000 and 120,000 in number,' have been purchasing sixteen and thirty-five millimeter prints of both copyrighted and public domain films, and have been screening these prints in their own homes for the private enjoyment of themselves, their family, and friends. When a collector grows tired of a particular film, he customarily swaps it for another print in someone else's collection, or sells it to another collector and uses the money to buy an additional print.2 Unfortunately, collectors have been subjected to a great deal of legal harassment in recent years, not only in the form of actual and threatened civil suits for copyright infringement but also in the form of warrantless and totally illegal print confiscations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This Article will analyze current developments in both the civil and criminal law as they relate to the hobby of film collecting. I. How PRINTS ENTER THE MARKET The most common question asked by people who have never heard of the hobby is: Where do these prints come from? This is indeed a key question. A factual analysis of the routes by which film prints enter the collectors' market must precede any legal evaluation of collectors' prac- tices.3 First of all, a considerable number of films are in the public domain, so that anyone may duplicate, sell, exhibit, lease, or make any other commer- cial use of any print. It is amazing how many thousands of films have become available in this way simply because no one bothered to renew the copyright.4 J.D., New York University; Professor of Law, St. Louis University. I There are no established criteria for determining how many films one must own or how actively one must pursue the hobby in order to be classified as a film collector. The fact that many collectors keep low profiles has not made the task of estimating the group's size any easier. 2 For a more detailed account of film collecting and its legal ramifications, see Nevins, Copyright, Property and the Film Collector, 29 RUT. L. REv. 2 (1975). 3 For a more detailed account of certain aspects of the material covered in this sub- section, see Nevins, Copyright, Property and the Film Collector, 29 RUT. L. REV. 2, 4-7 (1975). I Some enterprising film devotees have come up with a quick and fairly reliable un-

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