Legal rights are of vital importance to the daily work of a film archive. Copyright questions are complicated and intriguing and the issue has been off and on the agenda of FIAF for ages. In the beginning of the 1970's FIAF had a Copyright Commission, chaired by John Kuiper. Ernest Lindgren was a member of this commission and I was also for a short period a member. For the 37th FIAF General Meeting in Wiesbaden a working paper on "The Problems of Film Copyright and Related Matters as they Affect Film Archives" was submitted by Neville March Hunnings from London. All the information that was gathered at this time was useful, but not much came of the work of the commission.

Now legal rights are again an issue and in Bologna, on the 23rd of May a symposium was organised on "Legal Deposit: a Model for Film Archives". The symposium was chaired by Clyde Jeavons, who had introduced it in the FIAF Journal 47 in his article "The Permanent Way"; after the symposium was opened by Carlo Lizzani, Clyde Jeavons yielded the floor to Michael Henry, who is legal adviser to the British Film Institute, and who presented one of the best contributions of the day (and by far the funniest film quotation, e.g. the famous contract scene with Chico and Groucho from A Night at the Opera). Michael Henry's overview of copyright problems faced by the archives is published in the Guest Editorial. Contrary to what some of us might have expected, the copyright problems are getting more and more complicated, which is not making it easier for film archives to present films. The new perspectives should therefore be taken into consideration by the Programming and Access Commission.

Experiences of various national film archives were presented by representatives of 10 film archives from Europe, the United States, Mexico and Israel. These statements were the least rewarding part of the day. Much of what was said was already in print. There were not many questions and this part of the symposium was as symposia usually go. With the honourable purpose of enlivening our day were shown scenes from more or less relevant films.

Much more interesting was Clyde Jeavons' intervention "A Model System", in which he put in ten suggestions for future laws on legal deposit, the most important being the claim of the deposit of a pristine mint print, free deposit of the original negative, and legal acquisitions of prints of foreign films. In the FIAF Journal n° 47 you will find Clyde Jeavons' suggestions in the article "The Permanent Way".

The symposium ended with a panel discussion with retrospective accounts from archives from the UK, Australia, New Zealand and India. The discussion entered the area of copyright as it pertains to the regional archives (which form a growing part of the membership of FIAF). The problems of regional archives might be a topic for a future symposium.

The reward for sitting through the long day was a marvellous fragment from Gold Diggers of Broadway (1928).

Ib Monty