A Shot in the Dark

The film was originally registered for US copyright by Chesterfield Motion Pictures Corp. on February 15, 1935, under registration number LP5338. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works registered between 1928 and 1963 required a formal renewal with the Copyright Office during the 28th year of their first term to extend protection to the full 75-year (now 95-year) term. Searches of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) show no renewal filed for LP5338. The film would have been eligible for renewal in 1962 or 1963, but no record exists. Additionally, the film is cited in the 'Film Superlist' by D. Richard Baer as a work that entered the public domain due to non-renewal. Consequently, the copyright expired at the end of its first 28-year term, and the film is in the public domain in the United States.