Read the full story here, via our friend and colleague Brian Frye, a law professor at the University of Kentucky. Below is one tantalizing excerpt:

The Zapruder film is not only the most important home movie ever made, but also the most thoroughly analyzed 26 seconds of film in existence. Shortly after noon on Friday, November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. At least 32 people filmed or photographed some aspect of the event, but Abraham Zapruder captured the assassination itself more clearly and completely than anyone else…. [But copyright law] made it largely unavailable to the public until 1998.