Public Domain
Jungle Man
1941 · Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) · Dir. Harry L. Fraser
An expedition sets out to darkest Africa to find the fabled City of the Dead, and must battle thick jungle, hostile natives, wild animals and a deadly epidemic.
Confidence
95
— Legal Reasoning —
Why this status applies
The film 'Jungle Man' was released by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) in 1941. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works registered between 1928 and 1963 required a manual renewal with the US Copyright Office during their 28th year of copyright protection to extend their term to 75 (later 95) years. If no renewal was filed, the work entered the public domain at the end of its first term.
A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal registration for 'Jungle Man'. PRC was a 'Poverty Row' studio that frequently neglected to renew copyrights on its library, causing a vast majority of its output to lapse into the public domain. This film is widely identified as being in the public domain by legal scholars and the film industry. It is frequently distributed by public domain specialists such as Alpha Video and is available for unrestricted download on the Internet Archive without copyright challenges.
— Cited Sources —
Supporting facts
- Stanford Copyright Renewal Database (checked for 1968-1970 renewals)
- Library of Congress, Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE), Motion Pictures 1912-1939 and 1940-1949
- Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain (1940-1949), Vol 2 (D. Richard Baer / Hurst)
- AFI Catalog of Feature Films (1941-1950)
Research summary based on cited sources, not legal advice. Always consult a qualified copyright attorney before commercial use.