What is the US copyright status of a work published in 1909?
A. Any work published prior to 1922, regardless of the country of publication, the citizenship of the author, whether it was registered or not, is in the public domain in the United States. No further copyright claims can be made on that work, and any attempt to prosecute someone for use of that work would be thrown out of a copyright court. Works published in the US today have a copyright term of life + 70. This is not retroactive, so US books previously in the public domain in the US did not get their copyrights restored when the new term of copyright was enacted.
