The Captive City (La ciudad cautiva)

The film 'The Captive City' (released in Spanish-speaking markets as 'La ciudad cautiva'), starring John Forsythe and directed by Robert Wise, was originally registered for US copyright by Aspen Productions on March 26, 1952, with registration number LP1614. Under the law at the time (1909 Copyright Act), works registered between 1928 and 1963 required a manual renewal during their 28th year of protection to extend copyright into a second term. I conducted a search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) and found no renewal record for this title or registration number. Because the copyright was not renewed in 1979 or 1980, the film fell into the public domain in the United States upon the expiration of its first 28-year term. This status is widely recognized in the film industry, and the film currently circulates via public domain distributors such as Alpha Video and is available for free download on the Internet Archive without restriction.