Africa Screams

Under the 1909 Copyright Act, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a renewal filing with the US Copyright Office in the 28th year of their first term to maintain protection. 'Africa Screams' was registered for copyright by Nassour Studios, Inc. on May 3, 1949 (LP2310). For this copyright to remain valid, a renewal would have needed to be filed in 1976 or 1977. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal record for this title or registration number. The film's copyright was extensively researched by D. Richard Baer for the 'Film Superlist' series, which confirms the film's status as public domain due to non-renewal. Consequently, the work fell into the public domain on January 1, 1978. Because the film is in the public domain, it has been widely distributed by various labels such as Alpha Video and Mill Creek Entertainment, and is legally hosted on the Internet Archive without takedowns from the original production entities or their successors.