copyright international
Public screening rights
<p>Is there a general worldwide rule for who you approach for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_and_private_screening" rel="nofollow noreferrer">public screening</a> rights if a film has not been released in your country?</p>

<p>Is it some middleman local motion picture association or the copyright holder in the home country of the film?</p>

<p>Generally speaking, the rights to screen a film that is protected by copyright law (which is called a "licensing agreement") must be obtained by the owner of the copyright wherever that owner may be found. Often the rights will belong to a movie studio, rather than to the people who are the principal authors of the work.</p>

<p>Some countries (but not the United States) have an "orphan works" exception to this requirement when the owner cannot be located.</p>

<p>The vast majority of countries in the world are part of this copyright law regime, but not every single country has any meaningful enforcement of copyright laws.</p>
