I don't think it works that way. You can release your own Night of the Living Dead VHS tape if you want, but that doesn't mean you can make a pinball machine based upon the theme, artwork, and film and not have to pay anybody.

Just call it "Night of the living flesh eaters" and it should be OK.

Meh. Generic zombie horror would probably be a better game than using clips/audio from that particular movie.

I'd much rather see a licensed Stern The Return of the Living Dead much better film and way better video assets, music etc. JMO

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I thought copywrite rules used to be something like 50 years after the creator died. Then Disney realized some of their most iconic property were going to become public domain so they’ve lobbied to get that changed. Now I think you just have to keep it active for you to have control.

This could have nothing to do with night of the living dead. But there might be other popular themes that fell off the radar.

Yeah but in that case just make a generic Zombie theme, I'm pretty sure the next Spooky is "Killer Clowns from Outer Space" which can't be all that expensive and also is great. First Spooky on my radar.

What happened with this film was that they forgot to copyright it, or maybe it was they forgot to add the neccessary copyright information in the credits.

Watched a great documentary about this a few years ago.

So while this movie was in it's initial release, people were making copies of the film and showing it in theaters without having to pay for it.

As long as there is an animation of Harry Cooper getting punched in the face each time you hit a pop bumper, I'm in.

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The funny thing about this movie is that Cooper was ACTUALLY RIGHT!

If they had just gone down to the basement, they would have survived the night, as happened in the ending.

I'll state once again just because the film is public domain doesn't mean the Night of the Living Dead property is actually public domain. The internet is filled with stuff claiming to be "officially licensed Night of the Living Dead" product. I'm really not sure, but just throwing it out there. I'm not sure exactly what's going on but there's probably a bunch of people at this point who claim to own the rights, and it could get messy.

This is perfect. Announce you are producing game and build a crappy prototype which is just a retheme of Night Rider. Take $500 down payments from 20 people (it's only 500, the rest is due when we ship your game). Get sued by whoever owns the film. Go out of business keeping the $9500 bucks ((500 * 20) - the 500 to build the proto). Wait 6 months. Sell the "one of a kind" prototype for $20,000 to a collector that isn't going to play it anyway, because it is a piece of pinball history. So I profit $29,500 for a weekend of work. THAT is a business plan!

The movie is in the public domain. Video and audio clips and elements from the story are free to use. But you can't use anything else in the franchise. Sorta like Sherlock Holmes. You can absolutely write a new Sherlock Holmes novel. Most of it is public domain, however the last few books are still under copyright so you can't use any details from those books. (American Pinball better not mention anything about Dr Watson's second wife, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate will sue the shit out of them)

Compliments like that will definitely get them on board. Every time someone insults my business choices, all I want to do is something for them.

John Russo, who owns the derivative rights, may take a bit of an issue with this

Zombies are boring and have been done to death. Giant radioactive Ants, now there's a pinball game.

Somebody somewhere would sue you.

Also the zombie genre is doooooooooone.