The Guilty

The Guilty is a 1947 film noir directed by John Reinhardt and released by Monogram Pictures. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a renewal filing in the 28th year of their first copyright term to remain protected. For a 1947 production, this renewal window was in 1974 or 1975. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal registration for this title. While many Monogram films were later acquired by Allied Artists or United Artists, the lack of a timely renewal filing in the mid-1970s caused the film to fall into the public domain upon the expiration of its initial 28-year term. The film's public domain status is widely recognized in the film research community and is cited in reference works such as the 'Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain' by David Pierce and D. Richard Baer. It is frequently distributed by public domain entities like Alpha Video and has been legally uploaded to the Internet Archive for many years without takedown request from any successor in interest.