World for Ransom

World for Ransom was released in 1954 and registered for copyright by Plaza Productions, Inc., on January 27, 1954, under registration number LP3243. Under the 1909 Copyright Act, works from 1954 required a manual renewal filing with the US Copyright Office during the 28th year of their first term to extend protection for a second term. For this film, the renewal window opened in 1981 and closed on December 31, 1982. A search of the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database and the US Copyright Office online records confirms that no renewal was ever filed for this title. This lack of renewal is further corroborated by 'Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain' by D. Richard Baer, which lists the film as having entered the public domain due to non-renewal. Consequently, the film's US copyright expired at the end of its first 28-year term. The film is widely recognized in the public domain and is frequently distributed by budget labels such as Alpha Video and Sinister Cinema, which specialize in non-renewed titles. The presence of the film on the Internet Archive and other public domain repositories without takedown notices by a successor-in-interest further supports its public domain status.