A Boy and His Dog

The 1975 film 'A Boy and His Dog,' directed by L.Q. Jones, is widely documented as having entered the public domain in the United States due to a failure to include the legally required copyright notice on the original theatrical release prints. Under the Copyright Act of 1909 (which governed works published prior to 1978), publication without a valid copyright notice (the word 'Copyright' or its abbreviation, the year of first publication, and the name of the owner) resulted in the work immediately entering the public domain. Harlan Ellison, the author of the original novella, famously maintained his copyright in the source material, but the film adaptation itself lost protection. This status is cited in numerous reputable film scholarship sources and by public domain archivists. The Library of Congress and copyright researchers like those at the AFI confirm that while the film was registered (LP 44365), the lack of notice on the distributed prints was fatal to its status during the era when strict compliance was required. The film has been widely distributed by public domain labels such as Alpha Video and Sinister Cinema for decades without successful legal challenge to its public domain status.