Swamp Women

Swamp Women (1956), directed by Roger Corman, is a US motion picture originally registered for copyright on November 24, 1955 (Reg. No. LP5924) by the Woolner Bros. Pictures Corporation. According to the US copyright law in effect at the time (the 1909 Act), the initial copyright term lasted 28 years. To maintain protection, the copyright needed to be renewed during the 28th year and filed with the Copyright Office. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no record of a renewal for this film. The 28th-year renewal window would have occurred in 1983-1984. Because no renewal was filed, the copyright expired at the end of its first term, and the film entered the public domain. This is further corroborated by 'Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain 1950-1959' by David Pierce, which lists 'Swamp Women' as having no renewal on file. Today, the film is widely distributed by various public domain specialty labels and is readily available on the Internet Archive for free download without copyright challenge.