Is A Bucket of Blood (1959) public domain?
The copyright record for this film, written out in full so you can check it.
The film is public domain. The score is not
What is usually said
Public domain — American International never renewed it.
The finding, and the working behind it
The film is public domain: Selma Enterprises swept the AIP library and renewed the registrations on both sides of this one. The Fred Katz score was separately renewed.
This one had to be checked properly rather than assumed, because the first research pass established that Selma Enterprises systematically renewed the American International library in 1984–87 and warned that every AIP title from that era should be presumed renewed until individually checked.
So the entire Selma Enterprises renewal set was pulled — 41 registrations — and read. It runs from The Oklahoma Woman (1956) to The Jailbreakers (1959/60) and includes I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Blood of Dracula, The Amazing Colossal Man, War of the Colossal Beast, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Earth vs. the Spider, How to Make a Monster, The Brain Eaters, Horrors of the Black Museum and The Headless Ghost. It is a thorough, deliberate sweep of the horror and science fiction catalog.
A Bucket of Blood is not in it, and the numbers around it are: LP15266, Tank Commando, renewed as RE0000356227 on 22 January 1987; LP15269, this film, not renewed; LP15270, Roadracers, renewed as RE0000286143 on 12 February 1986; LP15271, Earth vs. the Spider, renewed as RE0000286144 the same day. Selma also renewed LP15298 and LP15299. It renewed the numbers on both sides and skipped this one.
The producing company is no defense either: Alta Vista Productions is represented in the sweep by The Jailbreakers (LP19351), so Alta Vista titles were in scope. The UK release title, The Living Dead, returns no relevant renewal.
The register, as it stands
- Original registration
- LP15269, Alta Vista Productions, (C) 31 October 1959
- Renewal fell due
- 1986–1987
- Renewal found
- none, in a 41-registration sweep that was read in full
- Score
- Fred Katz — personally renewed, and live
- Searched
- 2026-09-01
The score was renewed, personally, and it is inside the film
Fred Katz wrote it and personally renewed nine or more of his 1959 instrumental cues in 1987. The picture being free does not make the music free, and an audio description track is laid over both.
This is the same structure as The Screaming Skull and Night Tide, and it is the reason the film-only verdict exists rather than a single yes-or-no.
How to check this yourself
Everything above is drawn from public records. None of it requires our word:
- The Catalog of Copyright Entries, the Copyright Office’s printed registration and renewal volumes, scanned and searchable at the Internet Archive and at the Online Books Page. Registration numbers beginning LP or MP are film entries.
- The Copyright Office online records at copyright.gov, which are complete from 1978 and therefore decisive for any renewal that fell due from then on.
- The NFPF Field Guide to Sponsored Films, for the industrial and educational titles, which records copyright status entry by entry.
Where these numbers came from
- Copyright Office public catalog, the complete Selma Enterprises renewal set of 41 registrations.
- Copyright Office public catalog, the Fred Katz music renewals of 1987.
What this does and does not mean
This is a finding about United States copyright, made in good faith from the public record. Copyright terms differ by country, and a film in the public domain here may still be protected elsewhere.
A negative search proves that no record was found, which is not identical to proving that no record exists. The Copyright Office says as much about its own catalogs. Where a search could not be decisive we say so above rather than rounding it up to certainty.
This is a record of research and not legal advice. If you hold a right in this film, or you think we have read the record wrong, write to mike@tapeterritory.com with what we missed and we will correct it here.
Why we did this research
Establishing what may be published is the first step before restoring a film and writing an audio description for it. That is what this site is for, and we do the same work on commission — audio description and captioning, with published rates.