united-states copyright public-domain
Is CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the Public Domain in the US?
<p>The Internet Archive says it is but that's just something a user wrote.  I can't find any information on this elsewhere.</p>

<p>TL;DR: Probably not.</p>
<p>Per Wikipedia, under USA law, for any audio recordings published after February 15, 1972, the earliest it it will enter public domain is 2043.</p>
<p>CBS Mystery Theater was published from January 6, 1974 through December 31, 1982, per Wikipedia. Therefore, these recordings are not likely to be in the public domain until after 2043.</p>
<p>If CBS, or whichever company now owns CBS Mystery Theater were to have made it available under a sufficiently permissive license, it's likely that it would, in practice, be in a very similar status to being in public domain. However with a quick search, I couldn't find any evidence that the owner of CBS Mystery Theater has in fact done so.</p>
<p>Of course, my searching is imperfect, and Wikipedia might be wrong. It's possible that it is indeed released under a sufficiently permissive license, though I wouldn't personally bet on it. Finally, I'm not a lawyer, so my reading of the whole situation might be really wrong.</p>
