A search for renewals was done under motion pictures for the years 1963 and1964. There were no renewals for the original black and white version of the film. However, there are copyright notices at copyright.gov dating from 2006 on the colorized version:
Type of Work: Motion Picture
Registration Number / Date: PAu003084629 / 2006-09-29
Title: The three stooges : short no. 83, Disorder in the court.
Description: Videocassette (Betacam SP)
Notes: Colorized motion picture short subject.
Copyright Claimant: Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.
Date of Creation: 2006
Previous Registration: Black & white film prev. reg. 1936, LP6383.
Basis of Claim: New Matter: colorization.
Other Title: Disorder in the court
There's no evidence that copyright continues to be claimed on the black and white original version of the film.
Licensing
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
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.