And some of you guys say that film is dead! Look at all the talk a measly little print of BASKET CASE has spawned!
Geez, a guy doesn't look at the board for a few days and look what happens. Chaos reigns!
In any case...let's see, how best to address this......
First, what my old pal L.A. Connection posted is, for the most part, correct. And yes, folks, he's been working behind the scenes at the Boston Marathon for quite some time. So he knows of what he speaketh.
With the studios having an ever more tenuous commitment to repertory 35mm prints, collectors and film archives have increasingly been invaluable to the continuing survival of repertory/revival houses and film fests. Look at the programming slates of most of major houses in New York, L.A., etc, over the last few years and you're more than likely to see collector and private archive prints peppered throughout them. That print of THE HITCHER that we enjoyed last year? We teamed up with the Alamo Drafthouse and several other major revival houses nationwide to fly it in from the BFI archive. There have been no domestic prints for quite some time, so it became necessary to consult alternative sources. And as part of that tour, we all paid a rental back to the BFI to cover the domestic rights.
Now some of the major studios are very amenable to clearing screenings of collector and archival prints. They're realistic about the state of their own archives, so as long as the venue pays them, they'll gladly give them the rights. On the other hand, there are a few studios (like, as L.A. mentioned, Warner Brothers) who have a very strict no collector print policy. It's too bad, but they're also completely entitles to enforce their copyright as well.
(On a side note about copyright: yes, there are major corporations who can get very draconian with their copyright enforcement. But under law, there are also a large number of artists and creators who have shed blood, sweat and tears for their works, who deserve to get some compensation for those works, and who are rarely paid due to the abuse of those laws by some parties. Yeah, call me crazy, but if I know of a filmmaker like Ted Mikels or Hershcell Gordon Lewis, both of whom financed a decent part of their own careers, I want them to be compensated for their efforts. But that's another discussion for another time...)
A key term that often gets bandied about in the film programmer's community is "due diligence." There are often situations (like the seemingly orphaned films that L.A. referred to) where tracking down the rights holders can be difficult. Most programmers will exercise their own due diligence in trying to find those rights holders, but it's often an extremely hard proposition. As MeatFetish pointed out, the Page Manor tactic of screening a print and holding back some cash in the event that the rights holder the venue was looking for surfaces is not all that uncommon.
That being said, most revival houses and festivals will also strive to pay a studio if they are able to clear rights for a private print. We did so with that (ahem) vintage print of PIT AND THE PENDULUM we screened last year. We also cleared rights to screen DAY OF THE DEAD in 2009 with Taurus Entertainment. It's just good business practice and helps keep everyone happy.
Now, are there still non-cleared screenings that happen around the world? Yes. Will there continue to be screenings like that? Yes. Argue ethics all you want, but in this internet age, does it benefit anyone if some goon on the net blows the whistle on a single screening of a film that would be nearly impossible to otherwise clear? In my mind, no. The key (once again, as L.A. pointed out) is the venue location. Bigger markets attract more attention, which leads to more risk for a non-cleared screening. Smaller venues off the beaten path are likely to draw less immediate attention. But that's no guarantee.
So yeah, in general, it's always best to at least attempt to pay the rights holders, and usually an even better idea if said rights holder is a major studio. But exceptions have occurred and will continue to do so.