How about Legal Guerrilla Drive-Ins?

Drive In!Slashdot is running a story about a N.Y. Times article (registration required, yada yada) that details Guerrilla Drive-Ins, mobile parties that use a DVD player and an LCD projector, and show movies projected against a wall in impromptu locations. This is of course of questionable legality, given the warning that most DVDs specify (that they are for private use only). But here’s a kooky idea: why not use the techniques to show and promote films that are in the public domain?

If you surf on over to archive.org, you can download a bunch of films that are in the public domain, films like:

  • Night of the Living Dead
  • Reefer Madness
  • D.O.A., and
  • The Brain that Wouldn’t Die

Besides the obvious impromptu MST3K-like possibilities, you could use it as an opportunity to show many classic movies and to educate the public on copyrights, fair use and the public domain.