Is Sex Madness (1938) 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, never renewed.
The finding, and the working behind it
Public domain in the United States: registered unpublished as Human Wreckage in 1938 under LU7988, with no renewal in any volume from 1957 to 1978.
The registration is under a different name from the one the film is known by, which is why it took finding: it was registered unpublished as Human Wreckage. The AFI Catalog confirms both the alternate title and the number.
Every renewal volume from 1957 to 1978 was searched under all three titles, under LU7988 and under the claimant. Nothing was filed.
Coverage is confirmed by what else is in those volumes: MGM and Roach shorts from April 1938 were renewed in the 1965 volume, so the window was being worked.
The register, as it stands
- Original registration
- LU7988, Cinema Service Corp., 28 April 1938, as Human Wreckage
- Titles searched
- Sex Madness, Human Wreckage, and the third name it circulates under
- Renewal found
- none
- 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 the AFI Catalog, for LU7988.
- Catalog of Copyright Entries, Motion Pictures renewal sections, 1957 through 1978.
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.
Watch it
Sex Madness (1938) is free to watch here, with no account and no advertising.
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.