Public Domain
The Electric House
1922 · First National Pictures / Buster Keaton Productions · Dir. Edward F. Cline
Botany major Buster mistakenly graduates in electrical engineering and is hired to wire a new home.
Confidence
100
— Legal Reasoning —
Why this status applies
Under current US copyright law, all works published or registered before January 1, 1928, have entered the public domain. 'The Electric House', starring Buster Keaton, was released on October 29, 1922, and registered for copyright by Joseph M. Schenck on October 20, 1922 (LP18349).
Because the film was published and registered in 1922, its maximum copyright term of 95 years expired no later than the end of 2017. Even if the copyright had been properly renewed (which it was, in 1950, by Loew's Inc. under R62080), the transition to the public domain was finalized on January 1, 2019, when all works from 1923 and earlier became public property in the United States. No further copyright protection is possible for this work in the US.
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
- U.S. Copyright Office Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE), Motion Pictures 1912-1939
- Stanford Copyright Renewal Database
- Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain (1894-1939)
- IMDb - The Electric House (1922)
Research summary based on cited sources, not legal advice. Always consult a qualified copyright attorney before commercial use.