Public Domain
Ten Dollars or Ten Days
1924 · Mack Sennett Comedies / Pathe Exchange · Dir. Del Lord
In this silent comedy, a pretty department store cashier is charged with a robbery that occurred overnight at the store. However, circumstantial evidence points to the store's soda clerk having committed both the $10,000 robbery and the assumed murder of the store's nightwatchman, who is missing.
Confidence
100
— Legal Reasoning —
Why this status applies
Under current US copyright law, all works published or registered before January 1, 1929, have entered the public domain. 'Ten Dollars or Ten Days', starring Ben Turpin and directed by Del Lord, was released on September 14, 1924. As it was published prior to the 1929 threshold, its copyright protection has expired regardless of whether it was originally registered or renewed. The film is widely cited in silent film filmographies and public domain databases (such as the Internet Archive) as a work for which protection has lapsed due to its age.
Note: generated without live web grounding (the grounded research engine was unavailable). Verify the cited sources independently before relying on this determination.
— Cited Sources —
Supporting facts
- AFI Catalog of Feature Films (Silent Film database)
- IMDb (Ten Dollars or Ten Days 1924)
- 17 U.S.C. § 304 (Copyright Act of 1976 as amended by the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998)
- 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.