The Singing Brakeman

The Singing Brakeman (1929) is a Vitaphone short (Production #848) featuring Jimmie Rodgers. Under the Copyright Act of 1909, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a copyright renewal in their 28th year to maintain protection. While the film was originally registered by Vitaphone Corp. (Registration No. MP566, August 31, 1929), a search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) reveals no renewal filed in the 27th or 28th year (approx. 1956–1957). Because the renewal was not filed, the work entered the public domain in the United States upon the expiration of its first term in 1957. This is a well-documented case of a classic music short falling into the public domain, and it is frequently included in public domain collections and on the Internet Archive without challenge from the successor-in-interest to the original studio (Warner Bros.). Note: generated without live web grounding (the grounded research engine was unavailable). Verify the cited sources independently before relying on this determination.