Image description: a screenshot from the Wikipedia page for the Doctor Who TV series, with a user-added caption that reads
"Preserve the media you can before it's gone forever."
The Wikipedia article reads,
"No 1960s episodes exist on their original videotapes (all surviving prints being film transfers), though some were transferred to film for editing before transmission and exist in their broadcast form. [88] Some episodes have been returned to the BBC from the archives of other countries that bought prints for broadcast or by private individuals who acquired them by various means. Early colour videotape recordings made off-air by fans have also been retrieved, as well as excerpts filmed from the television screen onto 8 mm cine film and clips that were shown on other programmes. Audio versions of all lost episodes exist from home viewers who made tape recordings of the show. Short clips from every story with the exception of Marco Polo (1964), "Mission to the Unknown" (1965) and The Massacre (1966) also exist."
Internet archives should be an entity receiving funding through tax dollars. They should be archiving a lot more of the internet, too, including all media. All tax paying citizens should have access to it through a govt provided email acct. Artists should apply for grants instead of relying on corporate residuals.
I just noticed a Disney film with the 100 years logo, and realized they still have copyright on their OG stuff. Too bad. It was never meant to establish a dynasty, just a bit of crumb before your work went into public domain. Sigh...
It would be less of a problem. But most of the media I consume is younger than that, and yet it is still at risk of going away at any moment. Nobody wants to even sell digital copies, except for the ones on CD, DVD, etc. Most of the time your only option is a "license" to access it, or a monthly subscription. A couple of years ago I "bought" the new Blade Runner on Google Play. Turns out now you can only watch above 480p on their approved devices. Which does not include my PC, my main device. The same goes for the streaming services, you get shafted on quality if you aren't using a "smart" tv.
Just the thought of it makes me ill. I don't get it. Even before my two daughters were born it was pretty gross and I got why they were shanked all the time in prison but once I had them... it went to disgust and the possibility of jail time if someone did anything like that to them.
Here is the suck... there HAS to be an archive of it to be used to help save kids, identify locations, get other clues, etc... Without an archive, it would be near impossible to do anything.
For a small glimpse of that fucked shit and why an archive is needed, check out a yt vid called Mr Swirl: The Internet's Most Disturbed User. It's not even a vid on why archiving is good, it's just a vid on how they got this shitheel but proves my point.
If I build a house, you buy it, that's it. I worked and got paid. Why in the ever loving fuck do people get paid for work they did 30, 40, 70 years ago?!
Because before this, artists, especially musicians and composers, some of the most famous in history, were dying in the gutter as paupers.
Mozart.
Vivaldi.
Stephen Foster.
Schubert.
It's not as simple as I may seem to be implying, but the short version is that copyright was a huge boon to the creative industry, or at least to the artists.
At first.
The issue is now it's about corporations and is way out of control.
That is, between your second and third sentence is the grey area.
Because the music, TV show, movie, or other media is a product they created and continue to sell copies of. If you build many copies of that house and sell more and more you continue getting paid.
Yes I agree, we definitely need archival of many more parts of the Internet. It's a lot harder for people now to access stuff that is no longer "popular" (I'm referring to streaming services here) and since so many shows are on so many different services that are raising costs it's easier for stuff to get lost