City Lights

City Lights, written, directed, and starring Charlie Chaplin, was released in 1931. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works from this era required a copyright renewal during their 28th year of protection to remain under copyright. The film was originally registered for US copyright on March 14, 1931, under registration number LP2055. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) confirms that the copyright was successfully renewed on February 6, 1958, under renewal number R208269 by Charles Chaplin. Because it was properly renewed, the film benefited from the copyright extensions provided by the 1976 Act and the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. For works published between 1928 and 1977 with valid renewals, the term is 95 years from the date of publication. Therefore, City Lights will not enter the public domain in the United States until January 1, 2027.