Triumph of the Will remains in copyright. However, the film is commonly mistaken as belonging to the public domain, and it receives frequent unauthorized home video releases as a result.[40]
Germany
Riefenstahl filed lawsuits against two postwar documentaries which had incorporated footage of Triumph of the Will. The first lawsuit occurred in 1954 against Wolfgang Hartwig, producer of Bis fünf nach zwölf. Hartwig argued that the rights belonged to the state, but reportedly eventually paid compensation to Riefenstahl, who donated it to a charity dedicated to returning prisoners of war.[41] Her second lawsuit against Swedish producer Erwin Leiser's Mein Kampf in 1960 was enveloped in greater public debate about the copyright and morality of works produced during the Nazi regime.[42] The case was settled against her in 1969.[43]
In a judgement by the Federal Court of Justice on 29 December 1966, the copyright to the film was transferred to the Federal Republic of Germany as the legal successor of Nazi Germany.[44] These rights are administered by the federally owned Transit-Film GmbH based in Munich, although it was contractually regulated in 1974 that any public screening until 2004 had to be approved by Riefenstahl and that she received 70% of all revenues.[45]
United States
In 1996, the copyrights of the film were restored to Riefenstahl under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act,[46] although some aspect of the US copyrights are uncertain.[47]
