Culture: CBS decides Jack Benny’s legacy worth more to them hidden away
- Basically, CBS has decided that it could cost too much to pay a lawyer to figure out if they can release these films – or even turn them over to Benny’s fans and family for release – and so it has decided to simply abandon them, sealing them back up in the vault forever.
- Boing Boing blogger Cory Doctorow • Regarding CBS’ decision to block the release of a set of old Jack Benny masters to the late comic’s fan club, for purposes of remastering. The network blocked the decision despite the footage being public domain, the fan club getting consent from Benny’s family, promising to pay for the remastering themselves, and being genuinely good-intentioned. These 25 episodes were thought lost forever. Now they’ll be locked away in some vault instead. Lame. source