All films and other printed or published materials such as books, photography, etc are copyrighted for a period of time and the creator has the option of renewing the copyright before it expires. If the copyright is not renewed, the material becomes "Public Domain" and anyone is free to use the material without cost and permission from the original creator.

With the very lucrative home video market, almost all movies continue to earn more money when they are released on DVD and tapes and I doubt very much if you will be able to buy the rights to any mainstream films. Even 'Grade C' movies that had a very limited theartical run or never played in a theatre has gone on to video and made some money.

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This however is certainly NOT a common practice; I would venture to say it probably is unique in the theatrical world, but it happened all the time in non-theatrical situations with 16mm prints being sold to libraries and schools. They typically could run them anytime they wanted (only in a non-theatrical context) until either a certain date, or more common, for the life of the print.

The networks also bought their own prints when then negotiated the rights to air a title. Usually the air dates were very limited -- one "television premiere" broadcast and perhaps one or two more re-runs and that's it. Because the print which they bought was "useless" to them after their contractual agreement the cost of a many prints that were run only a few times, literally in mint condition, were thrown out, to the great joy of many collectors. Of course when the use of film ended for network broadcasts, so did that source of collectors' prints.

And people wonder why we hate video.