Merry-Go-Round

Under the current copyright laws of the United States, all works published or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office before January 1, 1929, have entered the public domain. This film, directed by Rupert Julian and Erich von Stroheim (uncredited), was released in 1923, which is well before the 1929 threshold. At the time of its release, the maximum duration of copyright protection was 56 years (an initial 28-year term plus a 28-year renewal term). Even if Universal Pictures had properly renewed the copyright in 1951, the term would have expired in 1979. However, any potential extension provided by the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act is irrelevant for works this old; once a work enters the public domain in the US due to age, it cannot be re-copyrighted unless it is a foreign work subject to URAA restoration, which does not apply to this US production.