Public Domain
Don Q Son of Zorro
1925 · United Artists / Elton Corp. · Dir. Donald Crisp
Don Cesar De Vega crosses swords with a vicious member of the Queen's Guard, and steals the affection of a young heiress. When the officer frames the young upstart for murder, Don Cesar fakes his own death and retreats to the crumbling ruins of the family castle he plots his vengeance.
Confidence
100
— Legal Reasoning —
Why this status applies
The film 'Don Q Son of Zorro', starring Douglas Fairbanks, was released in the United States in June 1925. Under the US Copyright Act of 1909 and the subsequent amendments, works published with notice before January 1, 1928, have entered the public domain regardless of whether their copyright was renewed.
Following the expiration of the maximum 95-year term (calculated as 28 years for the initial term plus 67 years for the renewal term under the 1998 Extension Act), all works published in 1925 entered the public domain on January 1, 2021. As a US production from 1925, this film is definitively in the public domain in the United States and is widely available on platforms like the Internet Archive and via various public domain distributors.
— Cited Sources —
Supporting facts
- https://archive.org/details/DonQSonOfZorro
- https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf
- Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain (Hurst/Baer)
Research summary based on cited sources, not legal advice. Always consult a qualified copyright attorney before commercial use.