Chicken Boo said:
If anyone wants to read up on the legal or logistical issues with regards to transferring the film, read through this thread. It covers just about everything you can imagine!
I read some of the replies there, and it's not technically legal to own a 35mm print, but nowadays they don't care as much as they did back in the 70s. Prints are occasionally left at theaters; I worked at one for 10 years and we had about 4 left there because of shipping disputes with the delivery company, and we never heard back from the studios about them. Also, film labs and depots go out of business, theaters close down and each of those locations have film and may sell them in auctions, etc. So there are entirely legal ways prints get out to the collecting community. As for transferring it, it is definitely copyrighted and you cannot transfer in that way the guy explains the laserdisc analogy. I have transfered many exploitation trailers and have lent materials out to Shout Factory and Synapse for various discs, the copyright of those materials are dubious. Often the exploitation companies went out of business, or the rights to the titles have swapped hands many times, so it's tough to track down ownership. Also, the amount of sales of the trailer discs are so small, it's not worth the companies time and money to sue. But with SW, there's no question about that one for sure!