Public domain MGM cartoons
I know this cartoon is in the public domain because there was no copyright notice. Are there any other MGM cartoons in the public domain?
shareSince when is no copyright notice = public domain? AFAIK you have copyright to your work even without a notice. This is valid up to a certain number of years after the death of the creator. And at least the directors of the early episodes (Hanna & Barbera) lived up to only a few years ago, I question whether it is possible to claim their work to be in the public domain.
The copyright notice is AFAIK something you put there to strengthen your case in case of a conflict, not to have the rights at all.
Prior to 1978 and to some extent up to 1989, in the US, you had to have a copyright notice on all copies or the work went into the public domain. There's a complex set of rules and unless you can get an authentic pre-1978 copy uncut, it's hard to prove that it's PD, but a number of works did pass into the public domain that way. And for works published prior to 1978, they get 28 years from publication, or 95 years from publication with renewal. And all this only applies in the US, and for US works (mostly).
shareIf the renewal on the copyright was on or after September 1962, that copyright was extended over the years between 1962 and 1978.
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