entry contains the date of publication, rather than the date of the deposit of the copies (or copy, as the case may be). Deposit of the published copies has, however, been made as shown by the records in the Copyright Office.
This catalog is a part of the Catalog of Copyright Entries: Cumulative Series. The publication of these catalogs is authorized by sections 210 and 211 of Title 17 of the United States Code. Section 210 provides in part: "The current catalog of copyright entries and the index volumes herein provided for shall be admitted in any court as prima facie evidence of the facts stated therein as regards any copyright registration."
The purpose of these catalogs is three-fold: 1) to meet the administrative needs of the Copyright Office; 2) to provide the legal profession, publishers, authors, and others interested in copyright easily consulted, compact index volumes listing the registrations in the several classes of works; and 3) to produce reference tools useful to libraries, to industry, and to research personnel by making available in printed form bibliographical information on record in the Copyright Office, much of which is not available elsewhere.
Of the same nature as the present Catalog of Copyright Entries: Cumulative Series, but issued before the series was established, is the two-volume work, Dramatic Compositions Copyrighted in the United States, 1870–1916. Supplemental volumes to this earlier work and to the present work are under consideration, as well as cumulative volumes for other classes of material.
Catalog entries for motion pictures registered subsequent to 1939 and for copyright renewals which have been or are presently being registered are available in the issues of the Catalog of Copyright Entries, covering the particular period of registration. A description (including price and instructions for ordering) of each part of the present Third Series, published semiannually, and of other publications of the Copyright Office, will be found in a list at the back of this volume.
The Copyright Office welcomes inquiries, suggestions, and comments on the content and organization of any of its catalogs. Please address communications of this nature to the Chief of the Cataloging Division, Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington 25, D. C.
Copyright Registrations of Motion Pictures
August 24, 1912–December 31, 1939
| Class L, Motion-picture photoplays | 35,301 |
| Class M, Motion pictures other than photoplays | 15,811 |
| Total | 51,112 |
Class M contains many animated cartoons and newsreels as well as nontheatrical films. The letter P or U has been added to the class symbol preceding the registration number for each entry to indicate whether the respective film was registered as a published or as an unpublished work.
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