Anatomy of a Psycho

The film 'Anatomy of a Psycho' was released in the United States in 1961. Under the copyright laws applicable to works published between 1928 and 1963, a work was granted an initial 28-year term of protection, which required a formal renewal filing with the U.S. Copyright Office during the 28th year to extend protection for a second term. A thorough search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the U.S. Copyright Office Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal record for this title or its production company, Unitel of California. For a 1961 release, the renewal window would have been in 1989. The absence of a renewal filing indicates that the copyright expired at the end of its first 28-year term in 1989, at which point the film entered the public domain. Furthermore, the film is widely recognized in the industry as being in the public domain. It is frequently included in public domain film collections and is distributed by companies specializing in PD content, such as Alpha Video and Mill Creek Entertainment. No active claimant or studio has asserted copyright ownership in recent decades.