Public Domain
The Floorwalker
1916 · Lone Star Corporation / Mutual Film · Dir. Charlie Chaplin
An impecunious customer creates chaos in a department store while the manager and his assistant plot to steal the money kept in the establishment's safe.
Confidence
100
— Legal Reasoning —
Why this status applies
The Floorwalker, featuring Charlie Chaplin and produced by the Lone Star Film Corporation (released through Mutual Film), was originally released in the United States on May 15, 1916. Under current US copyright law, all works published or registered before January 1, 1929, have entered the public domain regardless of renewal status.
Because the film was published in 1916, its maximum copyright term of 75 years (under the 1976 Act) or subsequent extensions (under the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act) would have expired no later than the end of 1991. Any work published before 1929 is definitively in the public domain in the United States as of 2024.
— Cited Sources —
Supporting facts
- https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf
- https://archive.org/details/TheFloorwalker
- AFI Catalog of Feature Films: The Floorwalker (1916)
- 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.