Is Charlie Chaplin Festival (1941) 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: the shorts in it are old enough. But a compilation can carry its own copyright.

The finding, and the working behind it

Public domain in the United States: the four 1917 shorts are free by age, and the 1941 compilation itself was never registered and never renewed.

A compilation is the case where a page like this earns its keep. Old films strung together in 1941 with new music, new effects and new titles can carry a fresh copyright on that added material, even though every frame of the films underneath is free.

So the added material was searched for on its own. It appears in neither the 1912–1939 nor the 1940–1949 cumulative Motion Pictures catalog, and no renewal appears in the 1968 or 1969 volumes under any title or name.

The contrast that makes this meaningful: Chaplin’s 1942 sound reissue of The Gold Rush WAS registered, as L11278, and it was renewed. When there was something to protect and someone minded to protect it, the paperwork exists. Here it does not.

The register, as it stands

What it contains: four 1917 Lone Star shorts: LP10507, LP11051, LP11052, LP12143
The shorts: public domain by age
The 1941 compilation: no registration in either cumulative catalog, no renewal in 1968 or 1969
Searched: 2026-09-19

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

Catalog of Copyright Entries, cumulative Motion Pictures 1912–1939 and 1940–1949.
Catalog of Copyright Entries, Motion Pictures 1968 and 1969, read for the renewal sections.

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.