The Taming of the Shrew

This short film was released on November 10, 1908, directed by D. W. Griffith for the Biograph Company. At the time of release, US copyright law was governed by the 1870 Act (as amended), which required a maximum term of 42 years (an initial 28-year term plus a 14-year renewal). Even under the more generous 1909 Act and the subsequent 1976 Act extensions, all works published in the United States prior to January 1, 1928, have entered the public domain regardless of renewal status. As a 1908 production, the copyright on this film expired at the latest in 1983 (75 years after publication, per the 1976 Act's extension of still-valid copyrights). Consequently, it is now in the public domain in the United States and globally. The film is archived by various institutions including the Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art, and is widely available on public domain repositories like the Internet Archive.