Hollywood vault: The business of film libraries, 1915--1960

This dissertation examines the history of how old movies became valuable and how the marketplace for film libraries emerged and evolved, spanning from the silent feature era to the sale of feature libraries to television. Film libraries---the collections of films that have completed the first distribution cycle but remain under copyright protection---gained value not because of the introduction of new technologies but because of the emergence and growth of specific markets. The marketplace for film libraries first developed in the mid-1910s when the star system, feature film, new distribution infrastructures, and copyright law enhanced the value of film negatives. Triangle's re-titling of William S. Hart films turned film libraries into an industry problem, prompting the intervention of the Federal Trade Commission. As the vertically integrated studio system emerged in the early-1920s, the top studios subordinated the reissue of films in order to concentrate on maximizing revenue and market share. The transition to sound changed the value of film libraries: the derivative became more important than the copy, a fact that, in the late-1930s, influenced Warner Bros.' decision-making process about what silent films to save and what to destroy. The post-World War II reissue boom changed the studio's perception; film libraries became as a vital profit center in the midst of industry decline. In the 1950s, television syndicators Matty Fox and Eliot Hyman developed business models for aggressively harnessing film libraries that gained importance through the remaining 20th century and early 21st century.;This study analyzes the full ecology of the media industries and argues against interpreting the business of film libraries simply as attempts by copyright holders to exploit old assets. Instead, the author calls attention to a dynamic marketplace of producers, intermediaries, labor, business buyers, and audiences. The shifts in this marketplace have carried long-term consequences for the structure of the media industries and the public's ability to access old works of media and culture.