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CBS Refuses To Preserve Jack Benny Footage

Posted by kdawson on from the thirty-nine-forever dept.

goosman writes "The president of the International Jack Benny Fan Club had the opportunity to review some holdings of the CBS vaults while assisting them with some transfers. In the vaults she found 25 shows on film that were unreleased, but in the public domain. The IJBFC offered to pay for the digitization and preservation of these shows; they got a letter of enthusiastic support from the Benny estate. CBS has so far refused to allow this preservation to happen." BoingBoing and TechDirt have both covered this act of cultural destruction.

1 of 323 comments (clear)

  1. Re:revoke ALL their copyrights by stinerman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Your point is well taken if you automatically assume that everything is copyrighted. It technically is today, but not in practice.

    Lincoln's estate should not be required to make his journals available because he never sought copyright protection for them. Same goes for your private works.

    CBS did seek such protections for their works, therefore, they should be required to make them available if they are the only copies in existence.

    If you want the power of copyright, you must release your works (that's the point of copyright), and should be required to make a copy on demand if your copy is the only one available. Preferably we'd have a copy on file at the Library of Congress, but we're not there yet.