public domain, see below
Crop of page 282 of the 1928 Pitt student yearbook, The Owl. This work was originally published before 1964 had to have the copyright renewed sometime in the 28th year. If the copyright was not renewed the work is in the public domain. It is best to search 6 months before and after the required year. Some periodicals are published the month before the cover date and some registrations may be delayed for a few months. Originally published with a copyright notice of 1927, this issue of The Owl student yearbook would have to be renewed in 1955. Online page scans of the Catalog of Copyright Entries, published by the US Copyright Office can be found here. [1] The search of the Renewals for Books and Periodicals for 1953, 1954, 1955 and 1956 show no renewal entries for The Owl by the Editor-in-Chief Kathryn G. Rowell, the business manager Verne E. Arens, the Owl itself, or the University of Pittsburgh. The copyright of the yearbook was not renewed and therefore it is in the public domain according to the criteria.

This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1963, and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart and the copyright renewal logs. Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (70 years p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 years p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 years p.m.a.), Mexico (100 years p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 years p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties. العربية ∙ Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ galego ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ українська ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ +/−