Black Fist

The film 'Black Fist' (also known as 'Bogard' and 'The Black Hand') was released in the United States in 1974. Under the 1909 Copyright Act, works published in the U.S. between 1964 and 1977 do not require renewal; however, they still required a valid copyright notice on the release prints and a U.S. copyright registration to ensure statutory protection. A search of the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) and the online Copyright Office records fails to locate a registration for 'Black Fist', 'Bogard', or 'The Black Hand' filed within five years of its 1974 publication. Furthermore, the film is widely documented as having been released without a proper copyright notice. It has been a staple of public domain 'multipack' DVD collections for decades (such as those from Mill Creek Entertainment and BCI Eclipse) and is available for free download on the Internet Archive without takedowns from any successor-in-interest. The lack of registration combined with the widespread industry treatment of the title as public domain supports the conclusion that the film failed to comply with the mandatory formalities of the time.