The Big Bluff

The Big Bluff was a US production released in 1955. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works registered or published before 1964 required a renewal filing with the US Copyright Office during their 28th year to extend protection to a second term of 67 years. For a 1955 release, this renewal window occurred in 1982 or 1983. A thorough search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the US Copyright Office (CO) online records confirms that no renewal was ever filed for this title. While the film was originally registered (LP4672; June 8, 1955, by Planet Filmplays, Inc.), the failure to renew caused the copyright to expire at the end of its first 28-year term on December 31, 1983. The film is widely recognized as being in the public domain by film researchers and is frequently included in public domain collections and archives (such as the Internet Archive) without copyright challenge. It is listed in 'Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain' as a non-renewed title.