Air Hawks

Air Hawks was released by Columbia Pictures in 1935, a time when US copyright law required a registration and a subsequent renewal in the 28th year to maintain protection. The film was originally registered with the US Copyright Office on May 24, 1935, under registration number LP5579. Under the 1909 Copyright Act, works from 1935 required renewal in 1962 or 1963. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, the Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) at the University of Pennsylvania, and industry reference guides including David Pierce's 'Motion Picture Copyrights and Renewals' and the Film Superlist (Hurst/Baer) shows no record of a renewal filing for this title. Because the copyright was not renewed within the allowed window, the work entered the public domain in the United States at the end of its first 28-year term, on December 31, 1963. The film is currently widely distributed by public domain specialists and available on archives such as the Internet Archive without restriction.