Soul of the Beast

The film 'Soul of the Beast', featuring Oscar the elephant and Madge Bellamy, was released in the United States in 1923. It was produced by Thomas H. Ince and distributed by Metro Pictures Corporation. Under current United States copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 304), all works published or registered before January 1, 1928, have entered the public domain. Since this film was released in 1923, its copyright protection expired exactly 75 years after its release (under the older 1976 Act terms) or, more accurately, its term was not further extended by the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act because it had already entered the public domain before 1998. There is no requirement to check for renewal records or notice compliance for works from this era regarding their current status; the 1928 cutoff is a hard threshold. The film is now free for use and distribution within the United States.