Yes, that's true for the USA. But in Germany for example you can not alienate intellectual property at all (sole exception: inheritance) only the exploitation rights.deadman wrote:Legally speaking if you bought the rights to the movie, you could issue a re-release, extended cut (remember you get all the original raw footage), 4K blu-ray edition, or whatever else you wanted to do with it. The old rightsholders no longer have a say in the matter.Warg wrote:The "haze" is Hamiltons special style. I guess even with the rights to the movie you would not be allowed to destroy a piece of art. European countries are strangely very sensitive about this ...
For France I found this: "With regard to legal succession, as in German law, one must distinguish between legal succession on the grounds of death and legal succession among the living. As in German law, the copyright is not transferable among the living." This is based on a law from 1992, I think they changed it some years before but in a more restrictive way - so there is a rest of doubt.
As to the act of "improvement" - this would display the piece of art in a way not intended by the author (or meanwhile his legal heirs) and as such surely harm his intellectual property ...