Back to the Soil

Back to the Soil (1941) was a commercial / industrial film produced by the Caterpillar Tractor Company to showcase agricultural automation and the 'new era' of farming. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a manual renewal-term registration with the US Copyright Office in the 28th year to maintain protection. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal registration for this film. The film was originally registered as a motion picture (MP11504) on July 23, 1941, but the rights holder failed to file for a second term in 1968 or 1969. Industrial films from this era were notoriously rarely renewed, as their commercial lifecycle was considered over by the time the renewal window arrived. As a result, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 1970.