I recently asked about material from a store that, it turns out, is permanently closed and the material is not on the market with any other store.

Another member of UMD told me that he had some of the defunct store's video downloads, but didn't think he could post them publicly on the forum, due to copyright issues.

However, I was wondering if I could purchase these files from him directly, or would that be a violation?

I'm only purposing this because the store of the original producer is closed and the material is not available through other stores or by other means...

I can understand the temptation to share material that's no longer available to purchase. (There's a similar argument for songs that aren't available on iTunes.) However, I can't see any justification for selling material that doesn't belong to you, i.e. the person who bought that scene shouldn't profit by giving you a copy!

From a legal perspective if the other person was selling you their copy of the material and not keeping a copy for themselves that would be legal. If they are selling you a copy of their copy that would not.
Additionally neither may be acceptable based on the policies of the forum.

That would be copyright infringement, the potential seller has no authority to resell the material (assuming digital downloads). It is legal to sell original physical media (VHS tapes and DVDs) as long as no copy is kept by the seller, but my understanding is that downloads are only licensed to be watched by the original purchaser. Also if people started trading second hand downloads, most current producers would go out of business. Most wam scenes barely break even as it is, anything that reduces producer revenue will have a huge negative effect.

If someone really wants to see a no longer available scene from a former producer, the best approach would be to commission a current producer with a similar style to create a remake as a custom. That also has the advantage of creating a modern high resolution scene.

We effectively buy a licence to watch digital media, rather than a physical product. Our ability to retain a copy of the download media we've bought is simply an additional courtesy service only valid with and bound by the conditions of that individual licence. Only the copyright owner may grant or modify this agreement.

Even if the copyright owner is deceased, it must be presumed that title has passed to a next of kin or other legal entity as their property - unless deemed otherwise in the deceased owner's will.

Just because it's not available doesn't mean nobody owns it.

I am undeleting this thread, as it seems to me like a good question and not against our TOS.

Basically, asking where to find long-lost content is a natural thing to do at this site, and doesn't necessarily imply that you want to pirate it. Someone may know where you can legally purchase or stream it.

But buying directly from another person wouldn't be okay. Even asking to trade, or asking "if anybody has it" can seem to imply that you're open to get it from an unofficial source, so we have to be careful about that.

In the VHS days, we used to not mind you selling your physical stash (we still forbade selling content of an actual wam producer just out of respect) but now that it's all digital, it seems naive to believe it'll be deleted from the original computer instead of just copied.

So I appreciate your question as it's probably one a lot of people had. I'm tweaking our TOS and will make an announcement soon!

Thanks everybody
Messmaster

One of the biggest issues this community faces is that a lot of producers are "on the down-low" and may have not told anyone about their activities. Many times when a producer passes away, they have made no provisions to specifically pass their media copyrights on to their heirs or to a predetermined 3rd-party. That, however, never means that the media is up for grabs. In the US, copyright lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years. If it was created as a work-for-hire, copyright lasts for 120 years from the date of production. Once that period is over, the media falls into the public domain and can be freely distributed or repackaged and sold by anyone. Until that period is over, copyright is inviolate. There is no such thing as an "abandoned copyright" in modern works. The rare cases where than actually happened all occurred prior to 1978, when the laws were a little different and the copyright lifespan was much shorter.

I want to take this opportunity to again remind producers that at Vidown, we offer an 'Estate Directive" function that allows media creators to specifically lay out what should happen to their content in the event of their death. It doesn't over-ride a legitimate will, but it does allow us to know who to ask when determining what should be done with the content. Even more importantly, it can let us know who we should NOT ask or bother in any way if their media production activities were not previously known to their family, heirs, etc. If any of our producers have not already set up their directives with us, we urge them to do it ASAP. You never know when you might just keel over unexpectedly or get hit by a bus, and then it will be YOUR content that people will be trying to find unsuccessfully.

Following up on Soundguy's comments from a UK perspective, I did some research before I made a will. (I'm not a producer, but I do have some non-WAM intellectual property.) This page was quite useful:
https://www.dacs.org.uk/knowledge-base/factsheets/protecting-copyright-and-artists-resale-right

In my case, my will has a specific clause for my "literary estate". (There might be a different phrase for photos/videos.) If I didn't put that in, the copyright on my IP would get lumped into the residuary estate, and it would go to the default beneficiary. If I didn't have a will, and I died without any living relatives, copyright would go to the Crown under "bona vacantia".

There's a similar concept for limited companies: if you inherit shares, and you want to close the company down, make sure that you get the money out first, otherwise it all goes to the Crown! (There are probably tax implications here, e.g. if you take that money as dividends; talk to an accountant if you're in that situation.) I believe that if you don't explicitly transfer copyright to someone else, that would become "bona vacantia" again. I don't know how it works for sole traders.

It is possible to buy the rights to intellectual property from the crown:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/buy-intellectual-property-bvc8
For instance, it might be possible to get the rights to the Splosh back catalogue that way, depending on who actually owned the copyright and what was in Bill Shipton's will. However, that is somewhat more expensive than paying £10 for a download!