Free streaming platforms replicate this branding. YouTube channels dedicated solely to public domain Westerns (e.g., "Western Mania") attract millions of views. The "Free Western" has become its own sub-genre, representing a specific era of filmmaking where the frontier myth was accessible to the masses, and now the content itself is literally free.
Since you did not specify an existing paper to summarize, I have drafted a on the subject. This explores the cultural and legal reasons why Western films are a dominant genre in the "free movie" ecosystem. western free movies