The 1972 revision of the Copyright Law extended the copyrights dated after 1906 for a period of 75 years following the original copyright. What this means is that in 1992, films made before 1917 have fallen into public domain. This rolling date will keep up until the old copyrights are no longer in existence. As always under the copyright law new elements of a work based on an underlying copyright are themselves copyrightable. Thus if you want to to a remake of 'teen years Chaplin films you may do so and copyright the new work. BUT so can anyone else as long they work solely from the now public domain material. Cal Pryluck <[log in to unmask]> Dept of Radio-Television-Film <PRYLUCK@TEMPLEVM> Temple University Philadelphia, PA 19122 voice (215) 247-9663