What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Alabama
A friend and I recorded a movie commentary for the film "Kolberg" from 1945 **** Germany, and I want to post the video, however I'm not sure if that would be safe to do despite it being nearly 70 years old and all involved in the movies creation are most likely dead. Does anyone own the rights to the movie still? And if so, would it be safe to post a commentary of it?
The original 1945 film "Kolberg" had its copyright restored in 1996, and the American version of "Kolberg" (with narration, additional film footage, credits and subtitles) is also copyright-protected. In addition, the film was written by Veit Harlan and Alfred Braun and they (or their heirs) may still hold some rights to the work.
Your commentary on the film, on its own, would (probably) be safe to publish (depending on the content) and, as justalayman noted, the use of selected clips from the film could be allowable under the fair use doctrine. But, in order to use the film in its entirety, you will need to get permission from the rights-holders - and it is generally smart to get permission to use even small amounts of rights-protected material, to avoid any legal challenge over the use.
This is because fair use is an affirmative
defense to claims of copyright infringement and not permission to use copyrighted material. Although special exceptions to the exclusive rights granted copyright holders have been carved out in the Copyright Act to allow for certain uses (such as for research, journalism, scholarship and commentary) even these fair use exceptions may not be judged fair in court (due to the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, the effect of the use upon the market for or value of the work).
Fair use is ultimately decided on a case-by-case basis in a court, if or when a copyright holder takes exception to someone's use of their copyrighted material and sues the unauthorized user for copyright infringement.
As a note, under the most common circumstances, copyrights in the U.S. will last the life of the author plus 70 years. In the U.S., under the most common circumstances, works are in the public domain if they were published before 1923.
