If you have ever gone to a movie store, book store, or even random dollar store in any given town and wondered why there are so many different versions of Night of the Living Dead out in the wild — there’s a good reason for it.
When Night of the Living Dead was released it entered the public domain because of this mistake, meaning the film’s producers couldn’t get a large cut of the estimated $30 million the movie has brought in, per Forbes.
Back when George A. Romero made the movie, the original title was Night of the Flesh Eaters, a name that would stick until just before it was set to be released.
According to the Library of Congress, a new title card was created and added at the beginning of the movie reading Night of the Living Dead, but Continental Distributing forgot to include one small, yet important detail: the copyright notice.