Is Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) public domain?
The copyright record for this film, written out in full so you can check it.
Public domain in the United States
What is usually said
Public domain by age.
The finding, and the working behind it
Public domain in the United States since 1 January 2023: a 1927 film, past the 95-year term. No renewal question arises.
This one needs no renewal search. Everything published in 1927 entered the United States public domain on 1 January 2023, when the 95-year term ran out. That is the whole finding for the film itself.
Ruttmann’s city symphony is a silent film, and silent films are where the soundtrack question usually bites: a modern score added to an old picture can carry its own live copyright even though the film underneath is free.
The register, as it stands
- Released
- 1927, directed by Walter Ruttmann
- US term
- 95 years from publication, expired at the end of 2022
- Public domain in the US since
- 1 January 2023
- Searched
- 2026-09-19
The film is free. Whether a given copy carries a modern score is a separate question
The copy the save pass looked at is an upload from 2006. A 2009 reviewer on that page says it carries no music. That is somebody’s impression written in a review, not a measurement we made, and we are saying so rather than presenting it as our finding.
A copy with a modern score on it is not covered by anything on this page. The film is free; a recording added to it in this century may not be.
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
- 17 U.S.C. 304 and the 95-year term for works published in 1927.
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 [email protected] 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.