Public Domain
Girls Winding Armatures
1904 · American Mutoscope and Biograph Company · Dir. Billy Bitzer
Numerous women sit in rows at machines where they appear to be winding some type of wire and tooling it onto machines. Two young men push spools of this wire down the aisle. Supervisors, male and female, walk down the aisle and observe the women's work, stopping for a while at one woman's station.
Confidence
100
— Legal Reasoning —
Why this status applies
Under the current copyright laws of the United States, all works published or registered before January 1, 1928, have entered the public domain. This film, directed or shot by G. W. 'Billy' Bitzer for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was filmed in April 1904 at the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co. in East Pittsburgh. It was registered for copyright by the studio in May 1904 (Copyright H45802).
Because the film was produced and published significantly before the 1928 cutoff, its copyright protection has expired by operation of law. The maximum possible term of protection for a work from 1904 under previous statutes (28 years plus a 28-year renewal) would have expired in 1960. Under the 1976 Act and subsequent extensions (such as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act), works already in the public domain are not granted new protection. Therefore, this film is definitively in the public domain.
— Cited Sources —
Supporting facts
- Library of Congress (National Film Preservation Board): Westinghouse Works, 1904
- AFI Catalog of Feature Films (and Shorts), 1893-1910
- Niver, Kemp R. Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress (1985)
Research summary based on cited sources, not legal advice. Always consult a qualified copyright attorney before commercial use.