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I bought some of these tapes and DVDs before I got my cable modem. Much of it is very cool indeed. Definitely worth the 10 bucks at the time. But since then I've downloaded dozens of hours of great footage from the Prelinger Archives. They specifically encourage you to use it in any way you wish. It's not-too-carefully telecine'd to MPEG-2 so it's not pristine, but it's pretty good. And you can tell that some of the original films were pretty ratty to begin with. I've used bunches of it as stock footage for commercial projects my company has produced. But if people are willing to pay for stuff they can get for free, well, I guess that's the American way!
(But if it's not public domain and free of copyright restrictions (and these aren't necessarily the same thing!) just because you aren't the "original offender" doesn't get you off the hook!)
--Dave
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