Creative commons and public domain are the wild west for old content. I have a friend that has over 2,000,000 Roku installs for 30+ channels built around an old catalog. His angle was to create unique openings, and do documentary type renditions of the content in question. It has worked very well for him over the past few years. He actually owns a b-rate production company that has several cult classic camp films that have won awards. Even he knows that fresh content is going to be KING, and the production is rolling for unique content again.
It's only a matter of time....