Lost media is any media that is believed to have been forgotten or no longer exists in any format. The term primarily encompasses visual, audio, or audiovisual media such as films, television and radio broadcasts, music,[2] and video games.[3][4]
Many television and radio broadcast masters, recorded onto magnetic tape, may be lost due to the industry practice of wiping. Motion picture studios also often destroyed their original nitrate film elements, as film and broadcast material was often considered ephemeral and of little historical worth after they had made their revenue. Some media considered lost may exist in studio or public archives, but may not be available due to copyright or donor restriction rules.[5] Due to unstable nature of any format, film, tape, phonograph record, optical discs like CDs and DVDs, and digital data stored on hard drives, all naturally degrade over time, especially if not kept in correct storage conditions.
Preservation efforts attempt to avoid the loss of works; this is usually done by storing them in archives, one example being the Arctic World Archive, which has been the chosen location for the preservation of the code on public repositories on GitHub[6] along with a wide range of data of interest to multiple companies, institutions and governments; including the Constitutions of Brazil and Norway.[7]
Lost film edit
A large portion of silent films made in the United States are now considered lost. A 2013 report made by the United States Library of Congress estimates that 70 percent of silent films made in the United States have been completely lost.[8]
Lost television broadcast edit
Lost television broadcasts are mostly those early television programs which cannot be accounted for in studio archives (or in personal archives); this is usually because of deliberate destruction or neglect.
Lost music edit
The Library of Congress estimates that a large portion of the earliest musical recordings, from the late 20th century to the early 21st century, have been lost. For example, only two percent of the over 3000 wax cylinders produced by the North American Phonograph Company between 1889 and 1894 are part of the National Recording Preservation Board's sound recording library as of 2024[update].[9]
A concept related to lost music is "lostwave", a term coined on the Internet used for extant recordings of music for which little to no information about its authors or origin exists. One of the more famous examples of lostwave, dubbed "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet", has been the subject of online crowdsourced research since 2019.[10]
Lost video games edit
Video games, including digital downloads, often fade from existence when digital game stores close, as demonstrated by the Wii Shop Channel, V Cast Network and the Nintendo eShop on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The infamous P.T., a teaser to the unreleased Silent Hills game, became un-reloadable after its removal from the PlayStation Network within a year.[11] The Wii U and Nintendo 3DS digital download games Dodge Club Party and Dodge Club Pocket were removed from Nintendo eShop in 2019 and 2022 and became publicly unavailable due to controlling issues.[12]
According to the Video Game History Foundation, 87% of American video games released before 2010 are out of print and cannot be acquired outside of the grey market or piracy. Many of these titles are in danger of becoming lost, or already are.[13]
Lost electronic data edit
Data stored in electronic computers risks being lost if it is not frequently migrated into more recent file formats. This happens because as new computer systems are developed and new technologies are built, now obsolete systems may break down over time, leaving the data inside inaccessible.[14] Electronic data preservation is further complicated by the fact that unless an emulator for a given computer system which can decode the data is present at the time of the preservation, the original data may become inaccessible as the original hardware breaks down, as it may depend on the original hardware to be decoded,[15] although in some cases the original data may be recoverable through lengthy reverse engineering work with the objective of understanding the original computer system enough to decode the most original electronic data possible.[16]
Lost Internet media edit
Media released on the internet, such as livestreams and blog posts, are especially vulnerable to being lost due to a number of issues, such as a website being shut down, it being deleted by the creator without being archived, or never having been archived in the first place.
See also edit
References edit
- ^ Soister, John; Nicolella, Henry; Joyce, Steve; Long, Harry (2012). American Silent Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films, 1913–1929. McFarland. p. 333. ISBN 978-0786435814.
- ^ Blanchet, Brenton (April 21, 2020). "The internet community unearthing lost episodes from your childhood faves". i-D. Vice Media. Archived from the original on July 11, 2021.
- ^ Forrest, Eleanor (March 8, 2022). "Meet Raven Simone, the YouTuber who discovered the lost Mean Girls video game". NME. NME Networks. Archived from the original on March 8, 2022.
- ^ Bell, Brendan (September 16, 2021). "Meet the YouTubers determined to find lost media". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on September 16, 2021.
- ^ Hughes, William (June 18, 2022). "A 'lost,' 'too-scary' episode of Sesame Street has been uploaded to the internet". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on June 18, 2022.
- ^ "GitHub will store all of its public open source code in an Arctic vault". Engadget. 15 November 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-11-15. Retrieved 2023-01-21.
- ^ "Look inside the doomsday vault that may hold the world's most important data". NBC News. 7 June 2017. Retrieved 2023-01-21.
- ^ "Library Reports on America's Endangered Silent-Film Heritage". News from the Library of Congress (Press release). Library of Congress. December 4, 2013. ISSN 0731-3527. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
- ^ "Lost Recording List". National Recording Preservation Board. Library of Congress. n.d. Archived from the original on October 19, 2023.
- ^ Dazed (February 27, 2024). "Lostwave: how the internet became obsessed with lost songs". Dazed. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
- ^ McWhertor, Michael; Sarkar, Samit (5 May 2015). "Konami pulls P.T. from PlayStation Store, no longer available for re-download (update)". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on 19 May 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2023.
- ^ "Another Game Has Been Delisted from Nintendo eShop". January 25, 2022.
- ^ Wilde, Thomas (12 July 2023). "Researchers find 87% of U.S. classic video games are out of print and 'critically endangered'". GeekWire. Retrieved 1 April 2024.
- ^ Scott, Jessica (23 September 2013). "Long-term Digital Storage: Simple Steps to Get Started". History Associates. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
- ^ "What is emulation?". Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Archived from the original on 24 October 2015. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
- ^ Blakeslee, Sandra (20 March 1990). "Lost on Earth: Wealth of Data Found in Space". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 November 2012. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
Further reading edit
- Hansen, Kathleen A.; Paul, Nora (2017). Future-proofing the news: preserving the first draft of history. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-6712-1. OCLC 961007777.