@Gargron I've owned and operated my own Plex server for several years now, but there's only so much I can justify spending on a personal archive here at home on hardware that I have to pay for and maintain. The death of physical media is sad, 😞 Hopefully somebody like the internet archive can do something about preservation, but I'm not going to hold my breath. My wife, who is a Doctor Who fan, says there are some episodes of Doctor Who that are just gone because they got overwritten.

@Gargron This is part of the reason why I've decided that breaking copyright is a morally correct thing to do.

@Gargron it’s insanity. You would think they would delete things that were very old at the very least. They’re deleting new content before I have a chance to watch it.

@Gargron
@tagesschau managed to reuse the same url for a new article. Prior and after a fight from Maske is where I realized how important it is to have unique urls for digital legacy.

@Gargron This is disturbingly true. Tech companies and streaming companies are making physical media less available overall. Example: Computers now rarely include optical disk devices (CD, DVD, BD).

@Gargron Sadly, I don't think you'll have to wait decades. It's starting now.

@Gargron No worries, most of it is formulaic, derivative, redundant dressed up plagiaristic shite.

@Gargron a new service comes around and their entire collection goes out of business with them.

I've been trying to find copies of my comfort shows before they're gone.

@Gargron Every editor I've talked to about this now pirates their own show, just to make sure they have a physical copy.

I understand the rights issues and disputes over residuals regarding streaming. But I don't know why absolutely everything isn't available online for purchase or rent.

@Gargron Archivists have been thinking about this, along with personal correspondence and other ephemeral documents that inform our understanding of the past.

@Gargron Even physical media was/is vulnerable.

@gargron
If properly converted from film it is easier to keep the quality the same instead of degrading discs and rolls of film.
I was looking forward to see more old series and movies scanned in high resolution and digitally remastered for streaming services.
Still missing a few things I watched as a kid though.

@Gargron pirates are the new librarians

@Gargron

... and how much garbage will be retained forever because storage is so cheap and getting cheaper. ;-)

@Gargron Funny coincidence that I was saying the same thing to my kids today, except I was talking about them sharing pictures on closed systems like instagram.
Your youth memories will be what you remember, because the pictures, texts and jokes will be long gone

@Gargron I remember the day when my son was three years old and wonder pets disappeared off of Netflix. That was a really shitty month for him. He just wanted to watch those animals save and help other animals.

@Gargron Physical media, as I have said before, is not obsolete. It's just being marketed that way.

@Gargron Thank god we have torrents and such :catblush: but yeah indeed..

I got a few series from not that long ago that are almost impossible to get completed unfort.. and not on any streaming service either

Maybe somewhere on an USB in a dusty drawer at HBO :blobcatgiggle:

@Gargron I love the connivence of my kindle, but there are certain books I make a point to buy in print purely because I’m afraid they will be sucked back into the ether… okay that and I like how they look on my bookshelves, but mostly for fear of the ether.

@Gargron Even though it may seem unbelievable, the only way to preserve some of those works is through piracy

@Gargron I only buy physical media. Guess I'm a Luddite!

@Gargron That's why certain "talk like a (pirate)" sites are facilitating a cultural archive, so to speak.

@Gargron Maybe that's a good thing? The amount of cultural productions since the 20th century is totally unmanageable for future historians, so it's probably good only a selection of it (hopefully the best parts) survive the centuries. We don't need to save everything, we need the trend starters and the best example for each trend.

@Gargron Not only lost, but nothing comes with a date-stamp, even news articles. The context goes like tears in rain....

@Gargron Oddly the fact it is digital gives me much more hope that copies will persist rather than something like flammable or chemically degrading film. Yes, there will be times (maybe long times) when things aren’t available due to licensing, but I feel like it’s much less likely all known copies will disappear. Distributed redundancy is easier for bits, in my opinion. Think of all those analog recording masters lost in the Universal fire because it was all kept it one place.

@Gargron Totally agree, @Peludo addresses this issue in his talk about a digital dark age. The talk is in spanish --> https://tube.undernet.uy/w/p/avDUHkqzjWyVkHtuN5JWEg

@Gargron if you're saying the pirate torrent archives are actually heroes we are in agreement. When cloud capitalism dries up and every beloved niche series and movie vanishes from the platforms they'll still be found on the high seas by those who can sail them. arrrrrr matey 🏴‍☠️🦜🏴‍☠️

@Gargron I transferred old 8mm and Super8 family film from decades ago into DVD. Nobody has an optical drive to watch those films and slide scans that are on the DVD

@Gargron Amen to that. But if I had all the movies, albums, and other media I have right now.... I'd have to have a mansion! :D But no kidding, I get what you're saying... we're leaving part of "our media history" in the hands of corporations. It's sad but... I don't know if there's any way to stop it.

@Gargron I'll be dead, why would I care?

@Gargron I had just this discussion with the new head of the Museum of the Moving Image in NYC

@Gargron #datahoarding gang might want to have a word with you.

There will always be people who torrent everything and delete nothing. More generally, piracy is the solution to content preservation in this kind of situation.

@Gargron I worry about that, and I make a habit of visiting the local video store most weekends. I still think there is room to push back on this medium shift, but there is an incalculable amount of money pushing hard on the other side.

@Gargron

Fortunately, there will always be free downloads from the Akashic records

@Gargron The only medium that lasts millennia is baked clay. That is why we can still read Sumerian grain contracts from 3,000 BC.

@Gargron I'm kind of divided. I've found so much music on #spotify that was either never released on CD or was hard to find. That music was essentially gone before streaming.

A band I love released a special limited edition CD three years ago with a lot of never released material. The CD is now $200 + on eBay when available. It's not on streaming, so it might as well be unavailable.

TV and movies though, that is a business model that is broken on streaming.

@Gargron
20 years ago "born digital" was a big deal, especially in library science and archives. There is nothing happening now that wasn't anticipated then.

We saw the train coming, and let it roll right over us.

#libraries #archive #digitalPreservation

@Gargron some of us don’t let that happen

@Gargron I do think this will be true over generational time scales & I dont necessarily think that physical media would always be the more robust option. Both have pros and cons.

The recording of audio & video is relatively new in the last 100 years or so. Think about what that body of work will be in 500, 1,000 or even 10,000 years from now, assuming humanity persists. How much content will exist? It would take lifetimes to sort through. Will anyone in the year 12023 listen to The Beatles?

@Gargron long live the internet archive and local copies

@Gargron This is a lesson!
If Nintendo has taught me anything I am only buying physical from here on out.

And where I can, for games media. Only something from a site like gog where I can preserve my download on physical media.

@Gargron

@Gargron it's honestly saddening to think that piracy is outright illegal yet often the only way to preserve so much media nowadays that you practically have to do it to truly preserve anything you enjoy

@Gargron It's going to be a heck of a loss unless we start preserving them in some way. If we have to go so far as to record this media off of the streaming platforms, then so be it.

@Gargron piracy is the way

@Gargron Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) has taken ownership from customers and instead put the ultimate power over products in distributors' hands. The ever-growing restrictions of rights over purchased products has led us to a state of affairs where consumers have little say and sway over what, how, when, or even if they're getting what they pay for.
This is a direct consequence of ignoring legitimate concerns by free software advocates.

@Gargron Future archaeologists will find USB hard drives and marvel at their contents...

@Gargron As someone who works in streaming media, I can assure you nobody is deleting things, especially on a whim.

Yes, things go in and out of availability because of contracts, international rights, royalty expenses, preferential release windows, etc. But all that content still exists.

It may not be available for you to see right now, but it’s not lost to the ether.

Whatever archive streaming platforms use will be here long after the last DVD has degraded beyond usefulness.

@Gargron yarrrrr 🏴‍☠️

@Gargron

This is what the goal has always been.

DRM, a Web platform the user has no control over (WEI), and the cost of living keeping everyone exactly where they are or worse.

The US DMCA (and similar foreign laws) has the moral footing of a sodomy law along with aspects of a slavery-era law in California that required the public to stop what they were doing and help the police tackle runaway slaves, and for some reason it still has a lot of people defending it.

@Gargron It always felt insidious to me that the companies want to force people to own less "stuff" in favor of renting them... and that many people have blindly complied. Music, TV, films...

@Gargron I get the business reason streaming companies don’t do physical versions, but it really, really sucks. Especially when it can be financially beneficial for a streamer to remove things entirely.

@Gargron v. concerned about this=every librarian
@librarians

@Gargron

@Gargron rip infinity train

@Gargron well, thepiratebay.org is there for whoever likes to start to prepare a time capsule to make it easier for them.

Disclaimer: you may want to use a vpn to evade capitalist laws.

@Gargron I'd like to think the copyright owners are keeping archival copies, but really having lots of copies is much safer

@Gargron

Yep. And DVDs and Blu Ray will soon be gone. We can't even legally download things.

@Gargron Media has become nothing but "content" now, which is meant to be quickly consumed and then forgotten.

@Gargron it's so easy for digital media to get lost to the sands of time

@Gargron

That's why they make (and I collect) vinyl records!

@Gargron most of Shakespeare's original work is destroyed or unaccounted for. What we have of Shakespeare's writings are mostly pirated. Their version of iPhone pointed at screen was a guy with notepad writing the dialogs that is being played on the stage. For most of history, piracy has preserved various artforms. Original work rarely survives. That one of the reason why most #bengali #literature from middle ages didn't survive. Although the main reason for this was invasion of foreign forces.

@gargron
Only The Pirate Bay will live on...
@tchambers

@Gargron I support physical media by buying 4K Blu-rays. Physical media still exists, but it is quickly disappearing. Vote with your dollars. There is great stuff published by Kino Lorber, Criterion, and Arrow Video.

@Gargron I read a theory some time ago we may be living in the next dark age. Think about all the news, media, interactions, etc that take place in this entirely ethereal and transient reality we call the internet.

@Gargron

At the rate at which we are destroying the planet, almost nothing will be left when aliens visit the earth and find the remains of what once was the human population.

@Gargron
"Everything not saved, will be lost"
(Nintendo Quit Screen)

@Gargron I have been buying dvd's from thrift stores to rebuild my library. Very few movies are available on streaming services compared to how many have been produced. It's wise to not dispose of dvds.

@Gargron My NASbox begs to differ

@Gargron we currently subscribe to maybe half a dozen channels. I wanted to watch Casino - the Scorsese classic - and couldn't find it on any of the channels, and we lost the DVD a couple moves back.

Soon the physical media will be unavailable as whatever conglomerate will pull it from sale just so they can have sole streaming rights, but won't actually put it on streaming because it saves money not to.

The suits, as ever, ruin everything.

@Gargron Yesterday, at my local library, I talked to one of the people who curate their movie collection, mostly DVD, and he said that they will phase out buying and offering physical media like DVD's in the upcoming three years. Another place that people can go to for physical media, instead of signing up for streaming services - sure, call me old-fashioned -, down the drain. And already I notice a lot of old movies have been removed from their catalogue.

@Gargron Piracy is the answer to this particular problem, IMO. Save everything and keep backups.

@Gargron With the vast amounts of private media that we produce with our smartphones every day, we should only wish the best to the big tech companies, whose clouds will still spit out some of it decades from now, when our children's children wonder what their ancestors and their world used to look like.

@Gargron As for the "public" media you mentioned, I agree with you. And no one who resists this with their private NAS probably has a plan beyond their own death. There is no media collection that does not need to be actively maintained. Photos should be printed or developed. If you want to preserve audio recordings, it's best to have them cut into a vinyl record. So far, I don't know anything useful for videos.

@Gargron Books on parchment and quality paper will survive.

@Gargron 87% of classic videogames is already lost, btw, according to the Videogame History Foundation: https://gamehistory.org/87percent/

@Gargron It also reminds me of the music tracker communities like oink/pink/what... they used to have perfect copies of millions of albums with perfect metadata...

They were literal libraries of musical history... and they just got shut down

same as pubhub with science papers... archiving is a common good and we need to build places to store all media.

same same with game emulation.. we need to keep games playable past a generation.

@Gargron It's a different sort of loss of media, previously the large risks were degrading physical media with vinegar syndrome and sticky shed syndrome along with bitrot, discrot and other terrible issues. Now if something is exclusively streaming only, then it's down to the whims of one company taking it away.

@Gargron
That's exactly what we are up to at https://digipres.club/, an instance devoted to digital preservation!! 😄
An example among many others, at the National library of France, we are step-by-step expanding the legal deposit to born-digital sound and video!

@Gargron Yep, a lot of information will be lost over the last 20 years and many more years to come.

@Gargron exhibit a: the Myspace exodus

@Gargron I’d say that’s the sort of role legal deposit libraries should be performing for us, if they don’t already.

.@Gargron writes: "Sometimes I think about how much media will be forever lost in decades to come because everything is now on streaming platforms that delete things on a whim instead of physical media."

This is one of the reason that services like the Pirate Bay are so invaluable.

@Gargron this is just why i download my soundcloud playlist every time i add a song
already caught about 1-3 songs that got wiped i think

@Gargron @colinstu exact reason why even though I pay for Netflix, I still download copies of their shows.

@Gargron

I would gladly see the last episode of the She-Hulk series disappear.

@Gargron I have a friend who is an historian who spends a lot of time writing things down for this exact reason

@Gargron That's the main reason I keep and still buy DVDs! I love physical media.