Shotgun Law
PUBLIC DOMAIN FYI
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Slow as Lightning poster
Public Domain

Slow as Lightning

1923 · C.B.C. Film Sales (Columbia Pictures) · Dir. Grover Jones

Our hero Jimmie March works for stockbroker E.J. Philips and daydreams of romance with Eleanor, the boss's lovely daughter. Unfortunately, Eleanor is dating Mortimer Fenton, a wealthy cad who used to push Jimmie around in college. To add insult to injury, Jimmie gets fired. All seems lost until a gypsy fortune teller foretells that he'll make a bundle playing hunches in the stock market. So, he convinces his buddies to lend him some money and invests in stocks that then start to skyrocket. However, Fenton isn't about to take that lying down and subsequently hatches a plan to wipe his rival out for good... Will Jimmie's fortune come true? Will he be able to defeat Fenton and win the heart of the girl? Watch and find out!

Confidence
100
— Legal Reasoning —

Why this status applies

Slow as Lightning (released in 1923) is a US motion picture directed by Grover Jones and produced by C.B.C. Film Sales, the precursor to Columbia Pictures. According to the current US Copyright Law, all works first published or registered in the United States before January 1, 1928, have entered the public domain regardless of renewal status. Under the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, the maximum term for works published between 1923 and 1977 was 95 years from the date of publication. For Slow as Lightning, this 95-year term expired at the end of 2018. Consequently, the film entered the public domain on January 1, 2019. This determination is based on the definitive era rule for pre-1928 works (17 U.S.C. § 304).
— Cited Sources —

Supporting facts

  • U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices
  • AFI Catalog of Feature Films (Slow as Lightning, 1923)
  • IMDb (Slow as Lightning, 1923)
  • Hurst / D. Richard Baer, Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain 1894-1939

Research summary based on cited sources, not legal advice. Always consult a qualified copyright attorney before commercial use.