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kate_nepveuActually it's late but my notes for this are surprisingly clean? And this is the last set, and I have indigestion, so let's go for it.
If this topic interests you, you should also see my notes on the panel Memories and Erasure in Fictional Societies.
Description:
The cult classics of the 80s and 90s survive on VHS and DVD, but how do we ensure that today's stealth favorites stick around long enough to acquire their audience? We'll have a frank discussion around physical media, digital media, the current issues with streaming, and recommendations for preserving content.
Calais Reed, David Friedman, Rebecca Fraimow (moderator), Shirley Dulcey
Rebecca she/they: moving image archivist, work in public TV Shirley she/her: long-term fan, dismayed by fact that some works now unavailable, including some released just a couple years ago Calais she/her, badge name, in professional circles goes by (name I missed); just finished Masters in Library and Information Science with a focus in Archives Management from Simmons University. in course on digital preservation, worked on MIT's Reality Hack, which is making virtual and augmented reality games over several days, involves a lot of cutting-edge hardware and software that often vanishes by next time David he/him: attorney focusing on contracts, IP, and privacy laws. artist. Rebecca: what stressed out the most about current state of media preservation? Shirley: stuff is disappearing. one big class, stuff created for the web. Wayback can't get everything. Flash. websites that disappear tend to take stuff with them. mp3.com killed by record industry because courts were incompetent David: there were a few other issues, but don't let me stop you Shirley: could scan your discs and then you could play their copies anyway. was distributed de-duplicated (something) but term wouldn't be created for 10 years, should have won that case Calais: is a problem in law-making of people who don't understand how the technology works David: what, the Internet is a series of tubes? Shirley: a lot of music that was given to site for free distribution, vanished. now streaming services vanish content. Calais: that also very much. another thing to worry about: partial misconception that anything put online will be there forever. is hard to remove things but things do vanish. also decay: files corrupted, hardware no longer available. one of Carmen Sandiego games required specific version of dictionary. Duck Hunt, came with special gun that only worked with that kind of TV, unplayable without. if scan all photographs, throw away, and don't replace hard drive as needed ... David: quick answer: as discussed in previous panel, large language modeling or "artificial intelligence" using data regardless of consent of owners, still working on consequences. bothers deeply both as artist and attorney and individual who understands that going to be subject to things like recorded Zoom calls that will be used for AI. what if video edited and then claimed to be oral contract? while do believe preservation important, sometimes what is being preserved is important too Rebecca: something starting to see a lot, idea that for preservation purposes, piracy is justified, in light of streaming removal; on other hand, objections to LLM. so let's talk about ethics of piracy with regard to preservation David: obnoxious boilerplate: not representing anyone, not legal advice. from sterile lawyer side, lot of discussion about what are purchasing/licensing when seeking media. example of purchasing paper book, know ability to enjoy will continue, right to make backup copy, if someone else puts out updated copy or tampers, can't touch what I have. licensing something online, can and frequently do discontinue without asking at all. horrible idea of actually reading contracts, though sometimes people will do "yeah, that's not what we said we would do, but what are you going to do about it?" Shirley: DMCA means do not always have right to make backup copy, illegal to circumvent copy protections. David: ability to make backup copies is yearly revisited/reauthorized by Library of Congress (me: I went to find a link, as I do, and while this is not my field, (a) it's three years and (b) I don't see, in the list of exemptions, one for individuals backing up their DVDs/Blu-rays?) Rebecca: presumes library has ability to make backup copies. Library of Congress gets DCP (digital cinema package), what is delivered to movie theaters these days, hard drives ... that are automatically code-locked after certain period of time. just what the studio was producing, not malicious Calais: from archival perspective, definitely not saying what you should do, but brushes up against complicated issue of where do you get that stuff. some things, really glad we have, but way we got may be on scale from sketchy to straight up illegal and gross. we discuss and then say, up to archivist's judgment, which is how a lot of these moral quandaries go in library school. don't know that have a direct yes/no answer to "is piracy good?" but does matter for what purpose: preservation copy not public access unless/until removed or in public domain, legally more acceptable than just want to watch offline or on different device Rebecca: to push on this a bit, Internet Archive bears a lot of burden of preservation, their policy is that don't have time to ask permission, just going to go take it all. difference between doing this for something intended to be work of art for public consumption, versus personal blog or video. is there responsibility to save everything, should we? Calais: certainly can't save everything. need somewhere to put the servers and take care of them, large investment. with traditional media, is a concept in current museums/archives, if have things with difficult to check provenance, or missing documents, sometimes put things up on website saying, if this is yours let us know and we'll take it down. Shirley: can tell Internet Archive to remove something, and flag things not to be scanned. but they store it anyway, just make it inaccessible. Rebecca: lot easier to make selectively inaccessible than delete Shirley: and they want to keep for historical record in case it's asked to be made available again (me: not surprised to hear this in retrospect given the massive overreach by the Internet Archive with ebook "lending" during lockdown, which seems frustratingly possible to wreck entire endeavor) Calais: Star Wars: The Old Republic, MMORPG (different from Knights of the Old Republic), had spy storyline, station set up to preserve everything on holonet and won't be released for 100 years and then everything out. very cool idea, completely impractical in real life. idea of delayed release of archival is a real thing. (me: I sometimes wonder if any archive would take my journals, paper and digital, and not do anything with for 100+ years, because I don't want to reread paper especially, and don't want relatives to, but hate to throw away; maybe they would be useful for understanding timeframe in future?) David: much meditation right now re: MLK surveillance tapes slated for release, historical importance versus horrific breach of privacy Rebecca: idea of holding on to stuff until acceptable time; how long? legal standards around copyright, not necessarily around privacy David: we do. state-by-state. but also what gets challenging is that USA is not an island. EU right to be forgotten versus a scrappy archivist, who prevails and how does it get solved, depending on where various people are located. question of, without international convention, how do you get, implement, enforce standard Calais: also then cultural privacy issues, not just personal, especially re: indigenous information that is culturally restricted to specific groups, subgroups, different times. library value of universal access brushes against respecting where things come from Rebecca: really big and important questions. bring back to media & preservation currently. media basically all digital now. if someone gave me a copy of their zine 20 years ago, no one would ask to destroy if author said wanted it back. YouTube video, mashup of two movies, is fundamentally different if someone wants that taken down? Shirley: of course in YouTube case committed piracy, not as though someone posted mp4 file on website. Rebecca: yes but that's how we distribute things these days Calais: think still struggling with globally, share things much wider than before, before no reason to think zine would be accessible across the planet, whereas digital publication could be seen by literally anyone. I don't have an answer either. if you have a collection of personal papers that were given to you, can you put that online (what if they lived long enough ago that they would have no expectation that would be done) Rebecca: paradox, much greater access and much greater possibility of total disappearance Calais: suppose topic is now punishable in author's country, much more worry if digital than zine and someone reposts David: biggest issue is metadata embedded in, gives many more ways to find author. challenge to example: zine usually author's own content versus mashup, so twist a little, somebody's podcast: internet still moves cost of copies and distribution closer to zero, makes redistribution more likely; also, if change a little bit or put out a reaction/response, gets very wrinkled quickly, but ultimately don't see meaningful difference between two except cost Shirley: if zine creators do want distributable, CC licenses Rebecca: questions? me: please give me juicy technical details about how to archive stuff once you have it Rebecca: lots of copies keep stuff safe = standard adage. not all copies in same basket, either technically or locationally. (not same type of hard drive that bought at same time.) for just preservation: your hard drive, online, your friend somewhere else. however many other considerations. lifespan of spinny hard disk, 3-5 years; solid state drive more dependent on how many times you use it. Shirley: SSD in vault, about 10 years. best currently available to home users, M disks, special writeable CD/DVD/Blu-ray that instead of dyes use different medium, supposed to be 100 years or more, if have drive that can read Calais: and store them properly Rebecca: use LTO tape at work Shirley: 10 year lifespan Calais: want actually really nitty details, see NDSA levels question: problem is stuff to play things back, have aircheck (?) cassettes of own radio appearances, but can't find working cassette players. one manufacturer in China who is crap. parts literally failing. Calais: some public libraries have digitization suites may be able to use to listen/copy. because of nature of digital media, care about content, not much difference in text file between Open Office and versions of Word, so can try to transfer to newer media to keep content. can also talk to local archives, archival associations, Society of American Archivists website should have local groups, New England archivists Rebecca: paradox at work, we are constantly frantically trying to digitize magnetic media, then put onto more media know will degrade and die, constant management. compared to filmstock, which does degrade but can be on shelf for 100 years which nothing digital now will Calais: best way preserve non-AV, just print and store somewhere cool audience: sitting in closet at Brandeis probably one of best archives of 1980s music, recordings of radio station. but who owns recording rights; don't have money to digitize. plus what's written on cassettes themselves: who played, when, who recorded it. I kept blogs of children when very young, wife printed out into books. John & Abigail Adams wrote letters, my wife and I IM'ed (me: I occasionally think about pulling my & Chad's old blogging about the kids into print books, because the kids aren't going to go back through our sites when they want to know more detail about their childhoods, even if those sites stay up. we already make photo books of big vacations as more easily browseable than Google Photos albums, and Chad's parents do a yearly book of "Fun Times with SteelyKid and the Pip.") Calais: brief attempt of Library of Congress to archive Twitter Rebecca: impossible and possibly unethical audience: for questions about how long things last, subreddit r/DataHoarder/ Calais: Library of Congress also has listing of their recommended file formats audience: various Facebook groups passionate about old formats like minidisks or reel to reel, lot of people would be willing to help Rebecca: archivist hat back on: time to deal with older media is now, because things degrading and because equipment being bought up by vendors to do it professionally Rebecca: close out: what do you personally do if really love something and want to be sure continue to have access to? purchase physical medical, own digital copy, track on streaming? Shirley: do buy video and audio on physical media for stuff I really love. if physical media doesn't exist, will try to find other ways to preserve, and keep in multiple places. NAS (network-attached storage) at home, another at makerspace, uploaded to cloud service (I asked after panel: an NAS is more complicated than an external hard drive that I run backups to, but for my purposes that plus cloud backups is good) Calais: actually not as good at this as should be. still buy physical books because can read on Sabbath, and they're pretty, so more with fanfiction and things like that. "I should do something about that, I should print it out eventually"--don't do this, later will be too late. one thing about preservation: really interesting story from professor about video preservation and emulation, some official project looking to do Oregon Trail. would normally think want to preserve source code. creators said, you can recode, but what we want is how and when die, which was based on historical data, to stay same. not what a lot of people would think to preserve. David: as fan of cartoons, for webcomics try to find artist and purchase book directly from them or dead-tree from website. one thing re: technical aspects of preservation, also overlooked, compensation to creators Rebecca: in my experience, if reach out to creator and say, I love this so much I want to have a copy I can preserve, often will be really happy to work with you panel notes
I did not expect this to be the "old things and preservation thereof" Arisia, but I greatly enjoyed it!
+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?
