Before the late 1930s, If a film was to be copyrighted, two paper prints of the film were sent to the Library of Congress along with the copyright forms. In the '30s they abandoned this, though. Many early films were copied from paper prints at the Library of Congress. Paper didn't decompose as fast as celuloid...and didn't tend to spontaneously catch fire, as did nitrate film. Also, it was cheaper for the movie industry to make positive prints on reels of paper. But anyway... I don't think the Library of Congress has a physical copy of this film. They don't have physical copies of any of my stuff from the '70s that I own the copyrights on. Today, they accept dvds. But during the period between the late thirties and the advent of the dvd, there isn't much in their film archive when you compare it to everything that was copyritghted during those years. They only preserved the material that they deemed important at the time. And of course, 99% of the time they were wrong on that.
