According to a cursory IMDB search, Jason Schultz has discovered that 93% of the movies released from 1927-1946 are unavailable (it’d be interesting to include current TV showings in this – what was that site that let you grep through US TV listings for keywords?). As an interesting aside, the IMDB has 36,386 titles for that period. The copyright office says there are 37,144 – which means that the IMDB, a largely amateur effort, has snagged 98% of the titles. All goes to show that Kevin Kelly’s assertion that enthusiasts might be better at preserving film history than paid copyright holders might turn out to be true. (Off of the rc3.org)
Currently:
so much for the protection of copyright