I am kind of in the same boat, but with television. I have never watched shows like Taxi, Seinfeld etc. I stopped really watching television 10-15 years ago, and before that, I didn’t watch any sitcoms (except for a few episodes of the Simpsons and Scrubs, but...that is pretty much it)
Of course, by the time I do watch it when I can’t do anything else, all the social framework that made them funny will be completely gone.
At that point, the show of choice will be “Ow, My Balls!”
You MUST see Seinfeld! Forget those others. Seinfeldisms carry on to this day. :)
As far as copyright. I guess if you bought the copyright it’s yours, no matter if you didn’t make the film.
Good for you. I put my last TV in the alley with a chunk of cement block through the picture tube in 1988. I missed it occasionally for a couple of months. Sometimes I feel lost among folks ardently discussing soaps and sitcoms but then it occurs to me that I have no business wasting my time with people who care about such things and I remove myself.