War of the Satellites

Under the 1909 Copyright Act, works published between 1928 and 1963 required a renewal filing with the US Copyright Office during the 28th year of their first copyright term to remain protected. 'War of the Satellites' was released in 1958 and registered by Roger Corman Productions (LP10906; May 12, 1958). To maintain protection, a renewal should have been filed in 1985 or 1986. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, the U Penn online Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE), and David Pierce's 'Motion Picture Copyrights and Renewals 1950-1959' confirms that no renewal was ever filed for this title. Furthermore, the 'Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain (1950-1959)' explicitly lists this film as having an expired copyright due to non-renewal. Because the film entered the public domain prior to the 1992 Automatic Renewal Act, its status is permanent. The film is widely available on public domain aggregators and has been released by multiple budget home video labels (such as Alpha Video) that specialize in non-copyrighted material, further confirming its status as a public domain work. Note: generated without live web grounding (the grounded research engine was unavailable). Verify the cited sources independently before relying on this determination.