Copyright Office has finished digitizing 25,238 record books that trace old films’ copyrights

The U.S. Copyright Office said on November 5, 2026, that it has finished digitizing its historical record books: 25,238 bound volumes of copyright applications and other records dating from 1870 through 1977, more than 21.7 million images in all. They are in the Copyright Historical Record Books Collection on the Library of Congress’s website, which the Office calls a digital preview of the physical books. For classic films, these volumes are part of the paper trail showing who claimed a copyright and when. The Office began scanning the books in 2021, the Library of Congress put the first volumes online in 2022, and the Office plans to make individual records easier to search.

Today’s milestone in completing their digitization ensures these records are preserved for the future and accessible to anyone, anywhere.

What the record books hold

Before 1870, the Office explains, copyright claims were filed with federal district courts and written by hand into record books. That year the copyright function moved to the Library of Congress, whose staff examined, numbered and logged each registration in books of their own. The Office estimates that about 19 million registrations are bound into the collection, and a separate set of books logs the documents that transferred or assigned copyright ownership from 1870 through 1977. Records from before 1870 stay in the Library’s Rare Book Collection and are not part of this project.

One gap matters for film history. From 1898 through 1945, applications were made on card stock and filed in the Copyright Card Catalog instead of being bound into books; paper applications went back into the books after 1945. By our reading of the Office’s description, that puts the original applications for most silent films and studio-era releases up to the end of World War II in the card catalog, which the Office has offered online since 2018 in a browse-only form, the Virtual Card Catalog.

Why renewal records matter for older films

Under the law in force before 1978, the Office’s Circular 22 explains, a copyright was secured when a work was published with a notice, or registered if unpublished, and it lasted 28 years, with a renewal possible in the 28th year. Copyrights still running on January 1, 1978, had their renewal term stretched to 67 years. But a work copyrighted before January 1, 1964, still needed a renewal filed in its 28th calendar year to get that extra time, while the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992 made renewal automatic for works copyrighted from 1964 through 1977. The circular names a first term that expired without renewal as one of the most common ways a pre-1978 copyright was lost.

The best-known film case is It’s a Wonderful Life. In a 2017 blog post, the Copyright Office recounted that Republic Pictures, then the owner, failed to file a renewal when the 28 years were up in 1974, so the film lapsed into the public domain and was shown again and again on television at the holidays. Republic still held rights in the short story the film was based on and had bought rights to its music, the post adds, and in 1993 it relied on the Supreme Court’s Stewart v. Abend decision to tell networks to stop airing the film without paying royalties. Our guide to It’s a Wonderful Life at 80 sets out where the Library’s accounts of that episode differ.

That second chapter is why Circular 22 singles out films. Motion pictures are often based on books, stories or other works, it notes, and anyone asking the Office to search an underlying work or a film’s music has to request that search specifically, giving titles, authors and approximate dates. Our guide to films that entered the public domain since 2024 covers the separate 95-year limit that ends the oldest copyrights each January 1.

What a records search can and cannot settle

Circular 22 describes three approaches: examining a copy of the work for its notice, date and publisher; searching the Office’s catalogs and records; or paying the Office to search. Staff searches are charged by the hour and end in a written report, which Circular 23 calls “factual, noninterpretive.” The Office also says it keeps no lists of works in the public domain and cannot give an opinion on the legal significance of what a search report contains.

It is just as plain about the limits. A complete absence of information in its records “does not mean that the work is unprotected,” Circular 22 says, and some works of foreign origin that had lost U.S. protection had it restored under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. A work in the U.S. public domain may also remain protected in other countries. The circular adds that in many cases it is important “to consult with a copyright attorney before reaching any conclusions”; the Office’s Records Research and Certification Section handles requests for paid searches.

The finished collection does not yet make any of this quicker by title. The record books are cataloged volume by volume, so finding one entry still means paging through a book. The Office says the next phase is to bring the records into its Copyright Public Records System, which first requires capturing searchable metadata, and that, pending funding, it expects to start digitizing part of its microfilm in fiscal 2027.

Why the books stop at 1977

The cutoff follows the law. The President signed a complete revision of U.S. copyright law on October 19, 1976, and most of it took effect on January 1, 1978, replacing the Copyright Act of 1909, Circular 22 notes. Registrations and other records from 1978 on are in the Office’s online catalog. By our count, the 1976 act turned 50 last month, a few weeks before the Office announced that it had finished digitizing the books that record the decades before it took effect.