Colorized Film Copyrights OKd

Copyright protection for certain colorized versions of black-and-white motion pictures, a controversial process strongly opposed by creators of the original movies, was approved today for registration by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.

The office announced that copyright protection will be granted to colorized movies as a “derivative work” only if they show at least “a certain minimum amount of individual, creative, human authorship” and are produced by existing computer-coloring technology. The copyrights of the original films are to remain protected.