How not to get sued?

[Kattphive]

Hello. My friend and I love riffing on old crappy movies, so we decided we want to give it a shot ourselves, and even post it online so others might (?) enjoy it. so my question is, how would we go about getting permission to post a movie (preferably super old) without some homeland security guy kicking down our door? Also, I live in canada, incase the copywrite laws are different

[Johnny Unusual]

Well, a lot of old bad movies are in what is called the Public Domain.  That means nobody owns these movies... and EVERYONE DOES.  It belongs to the public.  A lot of the video on demand riffs are Public Domain, though they are getting some movies that are owned by others for relatively cheap.

If you want to riff public domain movies, here is a whole website full of them...

http://archive.org/details/moviesandfilms

They also have public domain educational shorts and TV series.

http://archive.org/details/television

http://archive.org/details/prelinger

[Kattphive]

Thanks Johnny, I'll show this site to my friend and see what he can work with it. He's the movie guy who knows them all... or atleast he claims he does

[Johnny Unusual]

Cool, glad I could help.  There are a few classics in the public domain, some of which have been riffed, such as Night of the Living Dead and
The House of Haunted Hill.  A lot of them are pretty obscure though and many have appeared on MST3k (Manos: the Hands of Fate).

Me and a friend did one a few years ago that I am still proud of.

http://vimeo.com/18356668