Public domain or not?
Is this film in the public domain? By most standards it should be, how have the people putting it out on dvd managed to retain the rights, when anything else that old would be available?
shareCheck out this article on Wikipedia, which explains some of the complexities of copyright for films in the U.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_in_the_public_domain_in_the _United_States
It says that "all motion pictures made and exhibited before 1923 are indisputably in the public domain in the United States." Films made after that date may or may not be, depending on many and varied circumstances.