The 'High Sign'

The 'High Sign' was the first independent short film produced by Buster Keaton, filmed in 1920 but withheld from release until April 1921. Because the film was published in 1921, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Copyright Term Extension Act and the subsequent expiration of terms for pre-1929 works. Under current US law, all works published before January 1, 1929, have entered the public domain regardless of whether their copyrights were renewed. The film reached the end of its maximum 95-year protection period at the conclusion of 2016. Furthermore, even prior to the automatic expiration, this film was widely documented in the 'Film Superlist' as having entered the public domain due to the age of the work. It is currently hosted by numerous archives and public domain repositories including the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons without restriction.