The Magic Sword

The Magic Sword was a US production released in 1962. Under the 1909 Copyright Act, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a copyright renewal filing during the 28th year of their first term to extend protection for a second term. For a 1962 release, the renewal window would have been in 1989 or 1990. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the US Copyright Office online records (which cover all renewals filed from 1978 onward) fails to show a renewal for this film. While the original registration is noted (LP21666, March 28, 1962), the failure to renew the copyright in a timely manner caused the work to fall into the public domain in the United States upon the expiration of its initial 28-year term. The film's public domain status is widely recognized in the film industry and legal scholarship. It is a staple of public domain DVD collections (such as those from Mill Creek and Alpha Video) and is frequently hosted on the Internet Archive without copyright challenges. It was also famously featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, typically a sign of a film with an expired or easily cleared copyright.