Is The Dragon Painter (1919) public domain?
Pre-1972 sound recordings can be protected under US state law and the Music Modernization Act until 2067 or later — the print being public domain does not free the recorded music.
📄 Download the print-layer research packet (Markdown) — citations you can attach to a dispute. Not legal advice; print layer only.
Rights, layer by layer
A film is not one copyright — it is several. Each layer below can be free or protected independently. This is why one-click “public domain” answers are wrong so often.
| Film print (photoplay) | Clear |
|
|---|---|---|
| Music score | Active rights |
|
| Underlying story / screenplay | Clear |
|
| Character trademarks | Unclear | No primary evidence on file — treated as unverified. |
| Restorations / re-releases | Active rights |
|
Automatic rule notes
- Published 1919: US copyright term (95 years) has expired for works published through 1930 — the film print is public domain in the US by term expiry, regardless of country of origin.
Watch it free (archival copies)
Background
The Dragon Painter is a 1919 American silent romantic drama directed by William Worthington and produced by Sessue Hayakawa through his own Haworth Pictures Corporation, with distribution by Robertson-Cole. Hayakawa plays Tatsu, a reclusive mountain painter who believes his lost love was transformed into a dragon; location photography in Yosemite Valley and at Coronado, California's Japanese Tea Garden gives the film an expansive visual scale rare at its budget level. The Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry in 2014 as culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant. It is among the earliest American features with an almost entirely Asian cast, and the print layer — the original 1919 footage itself — is free to use in the United States.
The practical rights trap is the restoration layer. The 2024 Milestone Films and Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents a 2023 4K digital restoration by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Eye Filmmuseum, and George Eastman Museum; that presentation is a separately copyrightable work. The Blu-ray also carries two newly commissioned scores by Mas Koga and Makia Matsumura, each an independent protected recording. Copying from the Blu-ray means taking Milestone's licensed restoration version and those scores, not the bare 1919 original. The Internet Archive item (identifier: silent-the-dragon-painter) predates the 2023 restoration and is the more practicable PD source, though its provenance traces to the 1988 AFI/George Eastman House/MoMA restoration; anyone building commercial work on this footage should confirm the specific digitization's provenance before relying on it.
Common questions
Can I incorporate footage from The Dragon Painter in my own film or video?
The 1919 film is public domain in the United States by copyright term expiry, so using a PD source print is legally permitted. The issue is which copy you source from. The Milestone Films/Kino Lorber Blu-ray contains the 2023 4K restoration by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Eye Filmmuseum, and George Eastman Museum — that specific version carries its own copyright. Use the Internet Archive copy or another pre-restoration digitization and verify its provenance before building commercial work on it.
Is the music in available copies of The Dragon Painter free to use?
No. As a silent film, the 1919 original has no recorded score. Any musical accompaniment in a modern copy was added later and is protected separately. The Milestone/Kino Lorber Blu-ray includes two scores by Mas Koga and Makia Matsumura commissioned for the 2024 release, both under their own copyright. To use the film with free music you must either add your own, or source a copy with pre-1928 period accompaniment whose copyright status you have independently verified.