Creature from the Haunted Sea

Creature from the Haunted Sea was produced by Roger Corman and released by Filmgroup in June 1961. Under the copyright laws applicable to works published between 1928 and 1963, a work required a formal renewal filing with the U.S. Copyright Office during its 28th year of protection to extend its copyright term to 95 years. For a 1961 release, this renewal window occurred in 1989. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress (CCE) records indicates that no renewal was filed for this motion picture. While many Roger Corman-produced films from this era fell into the public domain due to administrative oversight or the dissolution of production entities like Filmgroup, this specific title is widely documented in legal and film industry literature (such as the 'Film Superlist' by D. Richard Baer) as having failed to renew. Because the initial 28-year term expired without a renewal registration, the film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 1990. Its status as a public domain work is further evidenced by its ubiquitous presence in 'multipack' DVD sets from PD distributors like Alpha Video, Mill Creek, and its unrestricted availability on the Internet Archive.