King Lear

The 1909 version of King Lear, directed by J. Stuart Blackton and William V. Ranous for the Vitagraph Company of America, is definitively in the public domain in the United States. Under current US copyright law, all works published before January 1, 1928, have seen their statutory copyright terms expire. Even under the previous copyright regime (the 1909 Act), the maximum possible term of protection was 56 years (an initial 28-year term plus a 28-year renewal). This film would have entered the public domain no later than 1965 regardless of renewal status. As a pre-1928 production, it transitioned into the public domain long before the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act could have applied.