The Suburbanite

The film 'The Suburbanite', directed by Wallace McCutcheon, was released in October 1904 by the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. As a work first published and registered in the United States before January 1, 1928, it has entered the public domain due to the expiration of the maximum possible copyright term. Under the Copyright Act of 1909 and subsequent extensions, the maximum term of protection for works published before 1928 was 75 years, which was later extended to 95 years by the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 for works still under copyright at that time. However, all works published before 1928 had already entered the public domain by the time the latest extensions were enacted, or have since expired under the 95-year rule (all 1928 works became public domain on January 1, 2024). Consequently, a 1904 production is definitively in the public domain in the United States.