Table of Contents
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Preface
Motion Pictures, 1912–1939, is a cumulative catalog listing works registered in the Copyright Office in Classes L and M between August 24, 1912, and December 31, 1939. Prior to that period motion pictures were registered in the category of photographs. These earlier works have not been included in this catalog because of the difficulty of identifying the motion pictures so registered.
The information given in each entry for the motion pictures in this catalog has been obtained from the record books of the Copyright Office, the original application for the registration of the copyright claim, and descriptive material deposited with the application and film in the Copyright Office at the time of registration. In addition, when these sources indicated that a particular motion picture was based on a published book or story or on a previously existing dramatic work, the name of the author and the title of such work have been verified, when possible, by reference to the records of the Copyright Office and the Official Catalog of the Library of Congress. Information from other reference tools was supplied in the entry only in the case of missing numbers and titles of parts of a serial, and in the few cases when that occurred the number or title is given in brackets. The descriptive material mentioned above is not available for all films. The film itself could not be examined because, in the case of published motion pictures, it was the policy to return the film to the claimant as soon as registration was completed, and in the case of unpublished motion pictures only representative prints taken from the film were deposited.
Each entry contains information which 1) is descriptive of the film, and 2) indentifies the copyright claimant and the author of the motion picture as given in the application, the date on which the term of copyright began, and the copyright registration number. The descriptive portion of the entries varies considerably in fullness, depending on the completeness of the information contained in the sources used.
In the case of each entry the name of the copyright claimant is that given at the time of registration. Any information relating to renewal copyrights or to subsequent changes of ownership recorded in the Copyright Office can be ascertained upon request and upon payment of the statutory search fee to the Register of Copyrights. In addition, information relating to renewal copyrights can be secured by referring to the Catalog of Copyright Entries covering the period in which the renewal registration was made.
In the case of unpublished works the entry contains the date of the deposit of the title, description, and prints. For published works the
