Talk:Bobby Bumps' Fly Swatter

Transcriber's note

I have not included the two title "cards", because they are clearly not original and are a modern placeholder for this encode. The reasons the encoder may have put this here instead of the original title could be 1.) because the title looked "messy" so they decided to add this instead to make the encode look nicer, 2.) because the title was missing in their print.

Regardless of their reasons, the drawing of the clown and the parrot, while they may look similar, are different drawings entirely from the originals, and were probably drawn recently. For this reason, in encodes uploaded to Commons that include this particular title sequence, this title sequence should probably be edited out with the revisions including it hidden, as (since it is technically a newer drawing with noticeable difference from the originals) those title drawings are copyrightable. Note: This does not mean the restored content of the film itself, like the intertitles, are copyrightable—just the unoriginal title sequence. Everything else in our current upload can be left as-is.

Further evidence that this is not an original title sequence include:

• The colors of the figures shown are inverted from the originals.
• The title sequence imitates a particular one with a clown and a parrot from the originals, but the text is visibly different. Note that the text shown in the sequence itself is too simplistic for copyright, but the drawings are not—though this does not mean this text should be transcribed anyway, as that text is still unoriginal.
• There is a fade-out at the end of the title sequence. To make a fade-out look this good in the 1910s probably would've been technically impossible.
• The copyright notice just says "Copyrighted". This is significant because Bray Studios made it a point in their title sequences to give clear copyright notices. And at the time, if this were the original title sequence, due to copyright laws at that time that are now no longer in effect, this incomplete copyright notice would have immediately sent the film into the public domain.

So, per the evidence and reasons I have given above, as this is clearly not an original title sequence, I have not included it in the final transcription, and it should not be included by any potential validators either. PseudoSkull (talk) 03:52, 4 January 2021 (UTC)