Edgar Allan Poe

The film 'Edgar Allan Poe,' directed by D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Company, was released in February 1909. Under U.S. copyright law, all works published before January 1, 1928, have entered the public domain due to the expiration of their maximum copyright term (originally 28 years plus a 28-year renewal, which expired long before modern extensions took effect). As a production from 1909, the film's copyright expired no later than 1965 (56 years after publication). There is no mechanism under current U.S. law to restore copyright to domestic works of this vintage. The film is widely available in public domain archives, including the Library of Congress and the Internet Archive.