Q: Can an individual appropriate PD films that are shown on TV or published on DVD without permission from the publisher?

A: No, an individual cannot appropriate public domain films shown on TV or published on DVD without permission from the publisher, even if the underlying film itself is in the public domain. Here's why:

While it's true that no one owns the copyright to the original public domain work itself, the specific version or edition of that work published by a company may have its own copyright protection based on new copyrightable elements added.

For example, with public domain films released on DVD or Blu-ray, the company that published it likely made investments in digitizing, restoring, and remastering the film to high definition quality. They may have also created new cover artwork, menus, special features, commentary tracks, etc. These new elements are subject to their own copyright protection.

So while anyone is free to take the underlying public domain film and digitize/restore it themselves from whatever original elements they have access to, they cannot simply copy and redistribute a restored edition created by another company without permission. Doing so would likely infringe on the copyrights of the new material added by the publisher.

The public domain status of a work only applies to the original work as it existed when its copyright expired. It does not give free rein to copy new copyrightable elements added in later editions without permission. Publishers of public domain material cannot prevent others from making use of the underlying work, but they can protect their own new contributions.