Digital Home Thoughts: Cult Films Hit The Web

"Dr. Jekyll, Bruce Lee and Notre Dame's hunchback are all finding new shelf space on a start-up's site. Last week, Veoh Networks began offering free downloads of cult classics, including kung fu flicks such as "Ninja Death 1," John Wayne movies like "The Lucky Texan" and black-and-white horrors such as "The Brain That Wouldn't Die." Thanks to the proliferation of broadband Internet access, video downloads have become increasingly popular. Blockbuster.com and Netflix have been facing off in the retail space. File-sharing sites also attract movie buffs, though the legality of such downloads remains iffy. Veoh's founders started their site last year mainly for people to post home movies. But they soon realized people had a desire to track down old Hollywood flicks and classic videos."

Dang, that is a wickedly cool idea. The quality of the movies is quite good and best of all it is free. How is thi spossible? The cult classics posted on the site have all fallen out of copyright, either because of their age or because of owners who failed to protect them. Anyone can upload films to the site; both posting and viewing is free. Cool stuff, let's just hope someone from Hollywood doesn't find some obscure reason for canceling this service.