Curse of the Ubangi

The film 'Curse of the Ubangi' was released in 1946 as a US production, distributed by Film Classics. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a renewal filing with the US Copyright Office during their 28th year of protection to extend copyright into a second term. Failure to renew resulted in the work entering the public domain. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal record for this title. Furthermore, 'Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain' by D. Richard Baer confirms that this title did not have its copyright renewed. Consequently, the work fell into the public domain in 1975 (at the conclusion of its first 28-year term). The film is widely available on public domain aggregators and is frequently included in value-priced 'exploitation' or 'horror' film collections (such as those from Mill Creek or Alpha Video) that specifically curate non-renewed titles. No evidence of a valid extension or underlying rights claim exists that would prevent public domain status.