Is Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) public domain?
It is on every public domain list on the internet. The copyright record says otherwise, and here is the number.
Not public domain in the United States
What is usually said
Plan 9 is on every public domain list there is, and is probably the most confidently mislabeled film on the internet. The story is that the picture was never renewed and belongs to everybody.
The finding, and the working behind it
Not public domain: renewed twice on 6 January 1986, RE0000279707 and RE0000278774, in copyright to the end of 2052.
Two renewal registrations exist for this film, both entered on 6 January 1986 and both claimed by Wade H. Williams III as proprietor of a work made for hire. Either one would be enough on its own.
The reason nobody finds them is a single character. The Copyright Office cataloged the film with the numeral spelled out, as "Plan nine from outer space", so a search for the name on the poster returns nothing at all. Returning nothing is evidently what every list quoting this film has done. The way to find it is to search the renewal class on one ordinary phrase, "outer space", and read the whole result set rather than trusting a title match.
This is the same failure that hides House on Haunted Hill, where the catalog carries an article the film itself does not have. Two of the most famous "public domain" horror titles in circulation are in copyright, and in both cases the only thing between the truth and the belief is one word in a catalog entry.
The register, as it stands
- Original registration
- LP0000029247, Reynolds Pictures, Inc.
- Renewal
- RE0000279707, registered 6 January 1986
- Second renewal
- RE0000278774, same day, same claimant
- Renewal claimant
- Wade H. Williams III, as proprietor of a work made for hire
- Filed under the title
- Plan nine from outer space. By Reynolds Pictures, Inc.
- US copyright runs to
- the end of 2052
- Searched
- 2026-09-07
The one thing that can be said against this
The renewal was filed by Wade H. Williams III rather than by Reynolds Pictures, the original registrant. A renewal claimed by a later party is the kind of thing that can be attacked, and we are not in a position to say whether the chain of title behind it holds up.
But that is an argument about who owns the copyright, not about whether one exists. Two facially valid renewal registrations sit on the public record, which is a very long way from the "never renewed" repeated everywhere. This is not a film to publish on the strength of a list.
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, renewal registration RE0000279707.
- Copyright Office public catalog, renewal registration RE0000278774.
- Copyright Office public catalog, original registration LP0000029247.
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 renewal registration on the public record is evidence that a copyright was claimed, not a judgment that the claim is good. Who holds it, and whether the chain of title behind it stands up, are separate questions we are not in a position to answer. What we can say is that the record is not empty, and every list describing this film as free is asserting that it is.
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.
What we do about it
We do not publish this film and we do not link to a copy of it. It is on our blocked list by name rather than by upload, because the same title reappears under a dozen identifiers and blocking identifiers would be an endless game.
Writing this down costs us a film people search for, which is rather the point. Everything else in this section is a film we did clear, researched the same way by the same person, and a record that only ever says yes would not be worth reading.
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.