Speak Easily

Under the 1909 Copyright Act, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a renewal filing with the U.S. Copyright Office during the 28th year of the first term to maintain protection. 'Speak Easily', starring Buster Keaton, was registered for copyright by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Distributing Corp. on August 22, 1932 (LP3210). A thorough search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE), and the Film Superlist (Hurst/Baer) indicates that no renewal was filed for this motion picture. The copyright would have needed to be renewed in 1959 or 1960. As a result of this failure to renew, the film entered the public domain in the United States upon the expiration of its initial 28-year term in 1960. Consequently, the film is widely available in the public domain, circulating through various PD distributors (such as Alpha Video) and hosted on the Internet Archive without restriction. This lack of renewal is common for several of Buster Keaton's MGM-era sound features. Note: generated without live web grounding (the grounded research engine was unavailable). Verify the cited sources independently before relying on this determination.