Clearly there are nearly countless benefits from the internet and the vast and myriad  ways we have to spread information these days, but there is one in particular I want to look at briefly in this post.

I have been a cord cutter (someone without cable television service) for several years. All of my video entertainment arrives on disc or by way of a streaming service. For the last couple of weeks I have been watching various film noirs on the HULU plus service. Some were good, some were not, but the general mood and atmosphere I am marinating in will be helpful in crafting my SF/Noir novel.

I think all of the films I have been watching on HULU are ones that fell into the public domain when the original rights holders opted to not extend their copyrights. Just a few years ago that would have cast these unprofitable properties into the trash bin of entertainment history, subject only to the occasional late night broadcast as part of a station’s ‘Movie ’til Dawn.’ (And not even that as the infomercial killed that.)

Now, thanks to streaming and the status of public domain, these films are available to new audiences. (I particularly liked The Red House. Both a noir and a snap shot of rural living in the mid 40s.)

Many more public domain movies are available on Youtube and sites such as Public Domain Movies.com. True more than 9/10s of these are truly terribly movies, but one usually pans through a lot of mud to find a single nugget.