Editing It's a Wonderful Life (section)

===Ownership and copyright issues===
[[File:It's A Wonderful Life-George with Mary.jpg|thumbnail|"What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the Moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the Moon, Mary."<ref>[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/212575-what-is-it-you-want-mary-what-do-you-want "George Bailey > Quotes"]. ''[[Goodreads]]''. Retrieved June 15, 2018.</ref>]] 
[[File:It's A Wonderful Life trailer (1946).webm|thumb|left|Trailer for the film]]
Liberty Films was purchased by [[Paramount Pictures]], and remained a subsidiary until 1951. In 1955, M. & A. Alexander purchased the movie. This included key rights to the original television syndication, the [[Film preservation|original nitrate film elements]], the music score, and the film rights to the story on which the film is based, ''[[The Greatest Gift]]''.{{#tag:ref|Capra's re-editing of the original score by Dimitri Tiomkin was restored to the Tiomkin version by [[Willard Carroll]] in the 1980s and released on a CD in 1988.<ref>Cox 2003, pp. 12–14.</ref> |group=N}} [[National Telefilm Associates]] (NTA) took over the rights to the film soon thereafter.

A clerical error at NTA prevented the copyright from being renewed properly in 1974.<ref>Cox 2003, p. 113.</ref><ref>U.S. Copyright Office, ''Catalog of Copyright Entries'', New Series, Renewals sections in the 1973–1974 volumes.</ref> Despite the lapsed copyright, television stations that aired it still had to pay royalties because&mdash;though the film's images had entered the public domain&mdash;the film's story was still restricted as a [[derivative work]] of the published story ''The Greatest Gift'', the copyright of which Philip Van Doren Stern had renewed in 1971.<ref name="Cox p. 115">Cox 2003, p. 115.</ref><ref>[http://shelf1.library.cmu.edu/Projects/crr/1971/1971-1-1614.tif "Renewal Registrations, p. 1614"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304025929/http://shelf1.library.cmu.edu/Projects/crr/1971/1971-1-1614.tif |date=March 4, 2016 }}. ''Catalog of Copyright Entries, January–June 1971, U.S. Copyright Office''. Retrieved November 8, 2010.</ref>{{#tag:ref| The United States copyright of ''The Greatest Gift'' will expire in 2038, 95&nbsp;years after its publication.|group=N}} The film became a perennial holiday favorite in the 1980s, possibly due to its repeated showings each holiday season on hundreds of local television stations. It was mentioned during the deliberations on the [[Copyright Term Extension Act]] of 1998.<ref name="Cox p. 115"/><ref>''The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1995: Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session, on S. 483&nbsp;... September 20, 1995''. By United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, United States. Published by U.S. G.P.O., 1997, pp. 16, 73, 126. {{ISBN|978-0-16-054351-7}}.</ref>

In 1993, [[Republic Pictures]], which was the successor to NTA, relied on the 1990 [[United States Supreme Court|U.S. Supreme Court]] ruling in ''[[Stewart v. Abend]]'' (which involved another Stewart film, ''[[Rear Window]]'') to enforce its claim to the copyright. While the film's copyright had not been renewed, Republic still owned the film rights to ''The Greatest Gift''; thus, the plaintiffs were able to argue its status as a derivative work of a work still under copyright.<ref name="Cox p. 115"/><ref name="TCM">[https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/79566/its-a-wonderful-life#notes "Notes for 'It's a Wonderful Life'"]. Retrieved October 29, 2011. ''TCM Movie Database''. 2010. Retrieved November 8, 2010.</ref> That year, Republic made a deal with [[Turner Broadcasting System]], authorizing only three airings of the movie, all on cable's [[TNT (American TV network)|TNT]] and [[TBS (American TV channel)|TBS]]. However, the studio's attempt to reassert control was widely ignored since there were still some existing distribution deals that Republic had to honor.

In 1994, the studio sold exclusive television rights to [[NBC]]. "We're thrilled that we will have the opportunity to broadcast this picture," said NBC Entertainment President [[Warren Littlefield]] at the time. "We will broadcast the original director's cut in black and white, full-length, the way Frank Capra intended this picture to be seen."

NBC traditionally shows the film on Christmas Eve. It had, for a time in the late 1990s, aired the film on Thanksgiving but removed that airing due to low ratings and began airing the [[National Dog Show]] instead.<ref name=nbchistory>{{cite news| last1=Caduhada| first1=Melanie|title=The National Dog Show becomes a Thanksgiving TV favorite| url=https://nypost.com/2013/11/23/the-national-dog-show-becomes-a-thanksgiving-tv-favorite/| newspaper=[[New York Post]]| date=November 23, 2013| access-date=January 23, 2017}}</ref> Paramount (via parent company [[Viacom (1952–2006)|Viacom]]'s 1998 acquisition of Republic's then-parent, [[Spelling Television|Spelling Entertainment]]) once again has distribution rights for the first time since 1955.<ref name="Cox p. 115"/><ref>Alsdorf, Matt (December 21, 1999). [http://www.slate.com/id/1004242/ Slate.com: "Why ''Wonderful Life'' Comes but Once a Year"]. ''[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]]''. Retrieved September 10, 2009.</ref>