Is Grave of the Vampire (1972) 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
In copyright: a 2012 filing about the film refers to a 1972 registration.
The finding, and the working behind it
Public domain in the United States: no registration exists under either title or any of the production names in the 1972 to 1977 catalogs, and our copy carries no notice.
This record exists because there is something in the file that looks at first like a copyright and is not one. A mortgage recordation from 2012 refers to a 1972 registration and names no number.
A recordation is a document filed about a claimed right. It is not a registration and it proves none. The full-year Motion Pictures catalogs for 1972 through 1977 contain no registration for this film under its title, under Seed of Terror, or under any of the production names. That evidence is independent of anybody’s paperwork.
For a film of this date a notice was still required, and the copy examined carries none.
The register, as it stands
- Registration found
- none, 1972 through 1977, under either title or any production name
- Alternate title searched
- Seed of Terror
- Notice on our copy
- none
- What the 2012 filing is
- a recorded document claiming “Reg. (1972)” with no number
- 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, Motion Pictures, full-year volumes 1972 through 1977.
- The 2012 recorded document, read in full, which names no registration number.
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.