Preserving the Sound of America

jonerik writes "The Associated Press (by way of MSNBC) has this article on the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry, which 'seeks to ensure even greater protection for some of the most notable songs, speeches and other utterances.' To that end, the library's extensive collection of recordings and photos will soon be moved to a massive 41-acre complex built into the side of a mountain in Culpeper, Virginia. When construction on the site is completed - in about three years - anything stored in Culpeper should be available via computer at the library's Madison Building on Capitol Hill. The Library of Congress has been collecting recordings for almost 100 years, the first being a recording of a speech by German Emperor Wilhelm II. Since then the library has collected recorded speeches by every American President since Theodore Roosevelt, oral histories, music, radio broadcasts, and other examples of recorded sound." This sounds like a collection which will become more valuable as more people have access to the actual content of the collections.

Comments

Doh!

[Anonvmous Coward]

"This sounds like a collection which will become more valuable as more people have access to the actual content of the collections. "

Unfortunately, thanks to the recent copyright rulings, nobody will be able to hear or see this content until Fry comes out of cyrogenic sleep.

Re:Doh!

[geekee]

Huh. I'm sure they'll let one person at a time check out a copy of any copyrighted material. After all, they did buy the one copy. :-)

Oh dear

[Dark Lord Seth]

The RIAA is going to have a field day with this one...

How long before...

[goatasaur]

...someone 'samples' this public-domain sound archive to make their own shitty techno music?

hitler_vs_truman---battlerap.mp3

Re:How long before...

[403Forbidden]

Just what I was thinking. What gives the Government the right to store copyrighted material all the sudden?

Bwa hahaa!

Re:How long before...

[akb]

Why is this a problem? The public domain belongs to everyone, to make shitty things out of or not.

Any healthy conception of free speech includes a way to draw on one's history for things that others may judge shitty or otherwise.

And that�s why I still read slashdot ... ?

[drix]

"This sounds like a collection which will become more valuable as more people have access to the actual content of the collections."

+1, Insightful, anyone?

P2P

[Avsen]

Or they could just put it on Kazaa. Less chance of records being lost if its on a lot of computers.

Re:P2P

[pyite]

I agree with points one and three. However, I think point two is rather moot. We have encryption systems that cannot be realistically broken without quantum computing (Triple-DES, and even better, AES). Combine that with a lot of the data would be parity data for redundancy, no one would have a clue what they are storing.

Re:So....

[NanoGator]

"What format would they deliver it in? MP3? Would they use their own government MP3 encoder and pay license fees? Ogg? Wav? Real? Audio out to a big loud speaker that gets pointed to your house? What? "

Well, they wanted to make sure that every computer they use can play it. So they're using Midi.

the recording.

[Joe the Lesser]

'The Library of Congress has been collecting recordings for almost 100 years, the first being a recording of a speech by German Emperor Wilhelm II.'

The speech apparently went as follows:
Emperor: My dog has no nose.
Crowd: 'How does it smell'?
Emperor: Awful.

Re:the recording.

[Absurd Being]

The reply.

Two peanuts were walking down the sidewalk. One of them was assaulted.

peanut.

Re:So....

[Anonymous Coward]

And strangely enough, Reagan's last State of the Union address, when converted to midi, sounds a lot like the Peanuts theme.

But do they have . .

[GMontag]

The REAL french national anthem?

Caution: MP3

Dispatches from the Future

[Tackhead]

> To that end, the library's extensive collection of recordings and photos will soon be moved to a massive 41-acre complex built into the side of a mountain in Culpeper, Virginia. When construction on the site is completed - in about three years - anything stored in Culpeper should be available via computer at the library's Madison Building on Capitol Hill.

January 27, 2006 - President Stallman and Gnu/FBI announce arrest and detention of terrorist group believed affiliated with Hilary Rosen

Giving public thanks to the constant vigilance on the part of tens of thousands of GNUTIA (Gnu's Not Total Information Awareness) server operators, President Stallman announced the disruption of a terrorist plot, allegedly involving weapons of mass destruction and notorious fugitive from justice, Hilary Rosen.

In his 2006 State of the Onion Speech, President Stallman announced:

"Since her departure from RIAA in 2003, Ms. Rosen and her band of followers have become increasingly militant in their outlook, and increasingly violent in their activities against anyone listening to audio recordings without payment of ransom to members of the RIAA cartel.

Starting with the KazaaSlammer worm attack of 2004, and then escalating to physical violence with the attempted truck bombing attempts against our allies in Vanatu in 2005, we knew the completion of the Culpeper complex would be a target of significant terrorist activity from the more extreme elements of the recording industry.

In December 2005, GNH (Gnu's Not HomeSec) officials working under auspices of GNUTIA, became aware that individuals affiliated with Ms. Rosen had attempted, or were attempting, to acquire weapons of mass destruction from deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and that they intended to use such weapons against the 41-acre complex of rare recordings at Culpeper. I am pleased to announce today that these plans have been foiled...

...and it's still called GNU/Linux, and that that law was passed for a damn good reason, no matter what the First Amendment or the Supreme Court says. God Bless America."

Responding after the President's remarks, Mr. Fritz Hollings, (appointed RIAA head after losing his seat in the GNU/Linux electoral victory of 2004), had this to say:

"Although we in RIAA have always disassociated ourselves from the actions against music listeners associated with certain more radical elements of our industry, but this ought to serve as a warning to the current administration that the longer the American people continue to listen to music without payment of protection money to RIAA, the more likely it is that such desperate acts will continue.

The occupation of Culpeper and the opening of public access to these recordings is nothing but a slap in the face to those of us so brutally oppressed. Out of cultural respect to us, we remind you of the root cause of terrorism - your failure to pay royalties to us whenever you even think about music.

What happened to Ms. Rosen after her departure from RIAA is a tragedy. Please - pay us lots of money, and help break the cycle of violence."

Re:Off-site backup?

[Anonymous Coward]

"... To that end, the library's extensive collection of recordings and photos will soon be moved to a massive 41-acre complex built into the side of a mountain in Culpeper, Virginia..." It's built into a mountian. And it's availible to the public. What more do you want?

The real thing?

[gokubi]

Too bad 15 acres of that is going to be taken up with Coke jingles.

Re:Presidential speeches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can they go back and edit the recordings to make it seem like Clinton knows the definition of "is"?

"Hello."

[leonbrooks]

"My name is Linus Torvalds and I pronounce Linux, Linux."

What licence is that under?