Neighbors

The film 'Neighbors' (1920), starring Buster Keaton and Virginia Fox, is definitively in the public domain in the United States. Under current US copyright law (the Copyright Term Extension Act), all works published or registered before January 1, 1929, have entered the public domain as their statutory copyright terms have expired. 'Neighbors' was released on December 22, 1920. Films from this era were subject to a maximum copyright term of 75 years (28-year initial term plus a 47-year renewal), which was later extended to 95 years. For a film released in 1920, the 95-year term expired at the end of 2015. However, because it was published before the 1929 cutoff, it is part of the general body of early cinema that is no longer eligible for copyright protection regardless of renewal status. It is widely available on public domain archives and through various restorations (such as those by Kino Lorber) that do not claim copyright over the underlying 1920 footage.