Peter Miller (of S&V fame) has some unkind words for capitalists keeping public works hostage for profit!
I wouldn't call The Carol Burnett show a "publlic work"! The writers, actors, musicians, all deserve to get paid, unless the rights to their performances were buy-outs.
I think Peter and others, including myself, are frustrated by the exhorbitant amount stock footage houses are now charging for footage that they most likely spent nothing on---newsreels, etc. where no one knows anything about who shot the footage and there is no profit for the person who did the work, only for the person who happened to get ahold of a copy. This is why, unfortunately, PBS relies more and more on cheesy re-enactments than on actual archival footage.
The price of the footage is why a landmark documentary like "Eyes on the Prize" was out of circulation for so long, and why Peter and I will probably never make a dime of profit from our film. But, that's not why we made it...only someone deluded goes into making a documentary for the money!