Basic Trope: Things that are shown on in-universe TV are Real Life Public Domain works.
- Straight: In Tropeville, Alice is watching Night of the Living Dead (1968) on her TV.
- Exaggerated: Every TV station in-universe shows public domain content.
- Downplayed: Alice is watching It's a Wonderful Life, a film that is half in the public domain (the images are PD, but the story isn't.)
- Justified:
- Alice is watching a TV station that is about public domain movies.
- Alice is watching a PEG Channel that is filling the current time slot with what little non-original content it can afford.
- Tropeville is set in 1952, long before the film went PD.
- Inverted: Alice watches a film that is still in copyright in Real Life.
- Subverted: Alice appears to be watching a public domain cartoon, until it is revealed that it is actually a Show Within a Show.
- Double Subverted: Alice thinks this is boring and watches a public domain cartoon instead.
- Parodied: The TV station is so low-budget that it has to show public domain content.
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes it shows public domain content, sometimes it shows copyrighted content.
- Averted:
- The TV just shows in-universe shows.
- Alice doesn't watch TV.
- Enforced:
- The film has No Budget so it has to rely on showing public domain content.
- None of the TV-shows from the era that the film was made in/is set in still carry copyright. note
- Lampshaded: "Why is everything on TV so old?"
- Invoked: Alice complains the owners must be too cheap to pay for content.
- Exploited: Alice is being flown to Bob's private island to be unknowingly hunted for sport and her inflight movie is The Most Dangerous Game.
- Defied: The creator decides to license a film from a major studio.
- Discussed: "Copyright really lasts too long."
- Conversed: "Does it even matter what's on in the background of a movie? You're not supposed to be watching that anyway."
Back to The Public Domain Channel.
