Cartoons and Copyright

[Cartman]

From what I understand, the reason why companies who own the rights to a lot of these vintage cartoons (i.e. Sony owning Columbia cartoons) don't release their cartoons on any format is because they don't believe it will generate enough income.

My question is, if they don't think the cartoons will generate enough income through sales, why do they continue to spend the money to renew the copyrights rather than just either selling the rights to someone else or letting the films lapse into the public domain?

 

[Pooky]

Beats me. I also think these companies could officially release some of their cartoons on YouTube; I'm aware that might not be a huge revenue generator, but surely a little is better than none?

 

[Low Spark of Lyman]

Regarding the Columbia cartoons, they have trickled onto MeTV's Toon in With Me block (i.e. a short appears every now and then), so at least they're getting some modern attention, even if it's not a format (I assume that means home video/digital/streaming).

Of course, it's good that MeTV is giving attention to vintage cartoons, especially those not yet available in a format.