Once Over Lightly

Once Over Lightly (1944) is a Warner Bros. 'Melody Master' musical short film (production #1208A) featuring Charlie Barnet and his Orchestra. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works first published between 1928 and 1963 required a renewal filing with the US Copyright Office during the 28th year of their first term to maintain protection. While the film was originally registered for copyright on December 21, 1944 (Registration Number LP13023), a search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal record for this title. For a 1944 publication, the renewal window would have been in 1971 or 1972. Warner Bros. famously renewed the majority of its feature films but allowed many of its short subject libraries to lapse into the public domain by failing to file the required Form RE applications. This film is widely identified in public domain filmographies (such as the Film Superlist) as having failed to renew.