Copyright and the Rankin/Bass Christmas Specials

Few things are more synonymous with the holidays than the Rankin/Bass specials. 

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, Frosty the Snowman, The Year Without a Santa Clause and Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey are just some of the Rankin/Bass releases considered classics today.

Founded in 1960 by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, the company released 34 animated television specials between then and 2001. Though it produced both traditional animation and stop-motion specials, the stop-motion ones are best known today.

But this raises a simple question: What is the copyright status of these works? Since they were all created after 1960, they should still be protected. If that’s the case, who owns the rights?

The answer is pretty straightforward overall. However, a couple of edge cases add complexity to the story.

Who Owns the Rankin/Bass Specials?

In 1960, Rankin/Bass launched under the name Videocraft International, Ltd. It remained that name officially until September 1974, when it relaunched as Rankin/Bass Productions and became a fully independent production company. 

This means that the Rankin/Bass library was divided in September 1974. Through a series of purchases and mergers, NBCUniversal now owns the library before September 1974. This includes Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, among others.

Warner Bros. Discovery owns the post-September 1974 library, which includes The Year Without Santa Claus, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year, Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey and Jack Frost.

This generally holds today. However, it’s important to remember that many individual specials, including Rudolph and Frosty, are based on songs and books predating the specials.

As such, the characters, stories and songs may become public domain before the specials.

That is, with one possible exception.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Whoopsie

Before the Copyright Act of 1976, works were required to display a copyright notice if they wanted protection. Failure to do so would result in the work becoming public domain immediately upon release.

This happened to The Night of the Living Dead and many other films from the era. 

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer did include a copyright notice, as seen above, but it contained a significant error. 

As explained in this article by Brian Cronin at CBR, the Roman numerals read MCLXIV, which is the year 1164. It should have read MCMLXIV, which would have said 1964. This missing M meant the work lapsed into the public domain sometime in the thirteenth century.

Theoretically, this means that the special is in the public domain for anyone to do as they please.

However, as Cronin points out, that isn’t the whole story.

First, Rudolph is based on a 1939 book by Robert L. May, and the iconic song is from 1949 (written by May’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, and performed by Gene Autry). Neither are in the public domain, as Rankin/Bass only licensed them.

Second, the rest of the music from the special is also protected by copyright. 

This puts the special in a similar place to It’s a Wonderful Life. While the movie is technically in the public domain, the story and the music are still protected, making it impossible to play fully without a license. 

So, while it is an interesting mistake, it has no practical consequences. It’s still functionally protected, and only the non-musical elements unique to the Rankin/Bass version could be considered public domain.

Jack Frost’s Urban Legend

Cronin also wrote a similar article about the 1979 Rankin/Bass special Jack Frost. Inspired by the Rudolph story and the special’s general lack of availability, rumors began to circulate that Jack Frost had met a similar fate. 

However, that simply isn’t true. Jack Frost was released after the Copyright Act of 1976 eliminated all formalities. It doesn’t matter if the special has a copyright notice or if the notice was incorrect. The work is still protected.

Regardless of how the rumor got started, it’s untrue. There’s simply no way that a technicality could cause the film to lose copyright protection.

Bottom Line

Ultimately, the Rankin/Bass specials are similar to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They are iconic works that feel unique but have pedestrian copyright histories.

The Rankin/Bass specials are now decades-old Christmas traditions. However, as we’ve seen before, Christmas is big business for creators. Though many Christmas works are in the public domain, most are not.

Though thinking about copyright doesn’t feel like a very Christmas-y thing, holiday works are no different than any other creative work when it comes to copyright.

It’s important to keep that in mind. You don’t want a Christmas tradition to become a New Year’s lawsuit.