Bargain Daze

Bargain Daze is a Noveltoon animated short produced by Famous Studios (the animation division of Paramount Pictures) and released on May 1, 1953. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a manual renewal of copyright with the US Copyright Office during the 28th year of the first term to maintain protection for a second term. For a 1953 release, the renewal window occurred in 1980 or 1981. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal registration for this specific title. While Paramount was generally diligent in renewing its feature films, a large portion of the Famous Studios cartoon library (including many Noveltoons, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and Herman and Katnip shorts) entered the public domain due to a failure to file renewal paperwork. This is consistent with its inclusion in various 'Public Domain' cartoon compilations released by third-party distributors like Alpha Video and Mill Creek Entertainment, which typically only aggregate films with expired copyrights.