The Prelinger Archives are a collection of films, mostly shorts made for industrial or educational markets. The archives was founded by Rick Prelinger in 1982, and by 2001 it had acquired over 48,000 completed films of varying lengths and over 30,000 cans of unedited film. In 2002, the Library of Congress acquired the contents of the archives as of that date. As of spring 2005, the archives holds about 4,000 films on video and over 30,000 cans of film acquired since the Library of Congress transaction. Approximately 2,000 public domain films are available for download and unrestricted reuse on the Internet at the Internet Archive. All the films in the archives are available for license for production use through Getty Images. While most of the films available at this site are corporate advertising and promotional films (1914-1980), educational films or U.S. government productions, the archives also contains a number of television commercials, theatrical trailers and ads, newsreels, amateur and home movies, and other items of cultural significance which are in the public domain because they were never registered for copyright or their copyrights have expired.
The stated goal of the Prelinger Archives is to "collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven't been collected elsewhere."
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