Beneath the 12-Mile Reef

Under the 1909 Copyright Act, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a renewal filing with the US Copyright Office during the 28th year of their first copyright term to remain protected. 'Beneath the 12-Mile Reef' was originally registered for copyright by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. on December 16, 1953 (LP3470). To maintain protection, a renewal should have been filed in 1980 or 1981. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the US Copyright Office online records indicates that no renewal was ever filed for this motion picture. The film is listed in David Pierce's 'Motion Picture Copyrights and Renewals 1950–1959' and the 'Film Superlist' as having entered the public domain due to non-renewal. Consequently, the work lost its US copyright protection at the end of its first 28-year term. The film's public domain status is further evidenced by its widespread availability in 'budget' DVD collections from labels like Alpha Video and Madacy, and its presence on the Internet Archive without copyright challenge. While the underlying musical score by Bernard Herrmann may independently be protected if it was published separately with a valid renewal, the cinematographic work itself is in the public domain.