McLintock!

The film McLintock! (often misspelled McClintock) was released on November 13, 1963 by Batjac Productions and United Artists. Under the US Copyright Act of 1909, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a renewal filing with the US Copyright Office in their 28th year to maintain protection. For McLintock!, the initial copyright term expired at the end of 1991. The renewal window opened in 1991, but Batjac Productions failed to file a timely renewal for the motion picture itself. While the film's musical score remains under copyright due to separate renewals and the underlying screenplay might have separate claims, the motion picture entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 1992. This status is widely documented in legal literature and film history as one of the most high-profile instances of a major film failing to renew. It is frequently cited in the 'Film Superlist' and Pierce's renewal guides as lacking a valid renewal for the cinematic work. The film has been widely distributed by public domain labels like GoodTimes Entertainment and Alpha Video for decades without successful legal challenge to the film's PD status.