A Universal publicity official, Sam B. Jacobson, was involved in originating and producing the newsreels.
In 1974, the films' owner, MCA, made the decision to donate all its edited newsreels and outtakes collection to the National Archives, without copyright restrictions.
[2] The decision effectively released the films into the public domain, although some stories may contain other underlying intellectual property or proprietary use rights.
[3] Because royalties no longer have to be paid in order to broadcast them, Universal Newsreels have become a popular source of file footage in recent years.
Also, C-SPAN and CNN regularly use the films for video of events that took place before those networks were founded.