Funeral for an Assassin

Funeral for an Assassin is a South African production directed by Ivan Hall and distributed in the United States by various entities including MGM in the mid-1970s. Under the 1964–1977 rule, works published in the US require a valid copyright notice to maintain protection; however, foreign-produced works are subject to the URAA (1996) restoration. If the film was still under copyright protection in South Africa on January 1, 1996, its US copyright would have been automatically restored regardless of past failures to provide notice or renew. A search of the US Copyright Office records and the Stanford Renewal Database shows no original 1974/1975 US copyright registration for this title, nor a subsequent GATT/URAA restoration filing (Form GATT). While South Africa is a member of the Berne Convention and WTO, making it eligible for protection under 17 USC § 104A, the absence of commercial presence or an active US rights-holder (it is frequently found on budget 'public domain' DVD sets and community-contributed archives) suggests it may have lapsed in its home country or lacked the necessary formalities at the time. Because there is no primary record of restoration and the film is widely treated as public domain by secondary distributors, but could technically be protected via URAA, the status is uncertain.