[ClearCase_guy]

Slightly off topic -- but I continue to be amazed that there is nothing good on TV. We have over 50 years of past television programming, and about a centuries' worth of film from around the world.

I turn on my TV and I see "The Bachelorette" and shows like that, and I see endless re-runs of "The Andy Griffith Show". That's about it.

[a fool in paradise]

Slightly off topic -- but I continue to be amazed that there is nothing good on TV. We have over 50 years of past television programming, and about a centuries' worth of film from around the world.

Blame Hollywood's constant revising of the copyright code to extend it.

Unless you want to see a lot of silent films and the occasional rare good PD horror (White Zombie, Carnival of Souls, etc) or noir film (DOA), the bulk of recorded media in the modern era (1930+) is still owned by a handful of corporations. The actors and musicians don't see a dime.

Never did understand why Jimmy Stewart made the appeal for it. It's A Wonderful Life BECAME a perenial classic BECAUSE it built up a cult following through repeated television broadcast (because it was public domain). Congress worked legislative magic and RETROACTIVELY restored the copyright (an impossibility) to this work and others that had lapsed.

In Europe you can now legally get boxed sets of music with everyone from Elvis to Little Richard to Frank Sinatra to Louis Armstrong. I wonder when the customs inspectors will prohibit the importation of these public domain boxed sets.