12 Million Historic Photos Scanned to Web

Snosty writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting that British Pathe, a cinema news service dating to the 19th century, has scanned one image for every second of their 3500 hours of 35mm film. That makes for 12 million images covering everything from the Boer War to the Beatles available on their web site!"

Comments

Not a single...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a single post and its incurs the wrath of Slashdot.

Re:Not a single...

[fhpaterek]

Talk about history flashing before your eyes.... Help my last moment has come. Oh duh, it is just a website.

BBC too.

[ideatrack]

The BBC have a small article with a few pictures too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/in_pictures/31 87316.stm

Re:BBC too.

[ideatrack]

Incidentally, did anyone else look at the third image and think it was just a behind the scenes picture from Blackadder? It's uncanny.

Very cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

.... now to download them all, and make some movies!

- DRFSR

Re:Very cool...

[l3prador]

They're slashdotted aren't they...?

Hi-Res?

[Brahmastra]

Are the scans Hi-Res so that photo quality prints can be reproduce well into the future? The article seems to say they are streamlined for download over a 56K Modem. I hope there are Hi-Res versions available too

Re:Hi-Res?

[CuriousGeorge113]

Quoted directly from the homepage:

"You can also license higher resolution copies of the same items for PowerPoint Presentations and Web Publishing, or simply buy a still from the item for private use."

Honestly, did you even read it????

Re:Hi-Res?

[Knights who say 'INT]

I took a couple of courses on film archiving and preservation back when I was a film school student, so I guess I have a couple of things to point out here.

1) One would think they want to profit from licensing the hi-res images for commercial use. I don't really know if it's okay to release important images from important early films that geeks of my kind value and cherish for commercial iconographic use just per se. I understand BP's need to be financially compensated for their trouble, but at least do it for money.

and, 2) Proper preservation must be taken in the original form. 35mm films should be transcribed to 35mm so they can be watched in original form in the future. I think nitrate must be sacrificed (even though they say it has a different glow on projeciton) and acetate used instead, but the importance of original media in film archiving is not to be understated.

This is a subject that really touches a nerve down with my deepest feelings, so, um, forgive me if I got cocky or arrogant or anything.

Re:Hi-Res?

[jandrese]

2) Proper preservation must be taken in the original form. 35mm films should be transcribed to 35mm so they can be watched in original form in the future. I think nitrate must be sacrificed (even though they say it has a different glow on projeciton) and acetate used instead, but the importance of original media in film archiving is not to be understated.

Why is this? It seems to me that by not updating the medium, you run the risk of not being able to play your preserved media because all of the players have decayed with age and lack of spare parts. What if the original medium was magnetic tape? Would it be wrong to copy it over to a modern HDD or optical solution? Do we really care if the tint/contrast/dynamic range is slightly different (usually more stable) on the preserved copy? Mandating that all preservation must keep the same medium seems like an unreasonable request when you're dealing with tons (literally) of 35mm and prints, doubly so if you have aging technologies like microfilm and microfiche or other things that may (or already have) become obsolete in the near future.

Re:Hi-Res?

[DuncMan]

Define "hi res" :-) . It's not so long ago that "high resolution" was 256 by 192 pixels!

It's a very vague term which changes definition by the day. Today's high resolution is tomorrow's mobile phone screen...

Better to keep film originals (with a resolution which can be measured in molecules, I guess) in archive than rely on any scanned version, since anything less than the original entails a loss of quality and 'resolution' :-) .

Yes, I know this is a fairly redundant comment...

Re:Hi-Res?

[Simonetta]

It's possible that in the future that there will be some way of recovering information from the original medium that will not be possible after the content has been copied to another medium.

So I agree with perserving the original media.

But it's fantastic that they are converting all this content into digital form. Digital content has several large advantages of analog media content:
-It can be reproduced and copied quickly.
-It can be stored in a smaller space than the original analog media.
-It can be tranmitted to another physical location quickly.
-It can be searched and sorted quickly.

Granted these features are driving the giant global 20th-century media corporations insane through P2P, MP3, and DivX, but that's more a reflection of the financial structures built around analog media rather than the characteristics of the mediums themselves.

Re:Hi-Res?

[Knights who say 'INT]

It's surprising how this has even made Slashdot. I'm glad, mind you. Slashdot needs a topic diversity just a tad bit wider. I particularly think it's sad how economics is set apart when covering the Nobels and whatnotelse. Note that I'm not saying transferring to digital is not a good idea. It's great that you and me can buy those things on DVD or CD-ROM. It's great that researches and film professors can use a properly packaged and formatted DVD (as long it's done right, with the correct tint colors for old B&W stuff and all) and not a camcorder-shot bootleg. I'm just saying it doesn't elliminate the need for keeping copies in the original medium. And that digital facilities can create the temptation to just burn the whole acetate stuff - it's expensive to keep, after all. That's why I can't resent British Pathe trying to cash in on all this. After all, they've _kept_ the stuff all the way, while Hollywood studios burned film for special effects in other films. On a final note, preserving the stuff is important when the stuff being preserved is important. I'm not saying microfilmed archives of bank checkbooks are to be kept. But the films that document the evolution of the cinema language are priceless. I didn't expect to have a past preservation discussion with the Spanish Inquisition!

Re:Hi-Res?

[lobsterGun]

According to the site, the images must be licensed for use in presentations and the like.

Re:Hi-Res?

[bardgirl]

The problem with copying to newer types of media (and I am speaking specifically of the case of film here) is that the newer media is often less stable and less likely to be accessible in the future. Film as we know it has been around for over a century and films from the late 1800's can still be projected. Compare that with the difficulty you would have accessing digital media like magnetic tapes or large floppy disks from not too long ago. As much as I love DVDs, I would never, ever want them considered as a viable archival alternative to film stock.

On another note, you mention microfilm and microfiche. These media are perfect examples of how a new-fangled storage medium can take over quickly, just becuause it is new-fangled, and then turn out to really suck in the end. Read Nicholas Baker's book Double Fold if you really want to get incensed about the loss of fantastic amounts of nuance and data from "outdated" forms of media like newspapers, magazines, and books.

holy crap!

[beady]

A use for the Storage Tank perhaps

Re:holy crap!

[Tyler Eaves]

Nah, even assuming they're 250k a peice, that's 4,000 per GB, 3TB total. 3TB isn't that much. And, obviously, if they're smaller, that total only goes down.

Re:holy crap!

[SphynxSR]

maybe there using gallery.

fauxking hysterical corepirate nazi billyonerrors,

[Anonymous Coward]

discovered to be scanning the web, attempting to delete/demoralize millions of hobbyist dogooder's collective efforts.

lookout bullow.

consult with/trust in yOUR creator... get ready to see the light.

Quick thinking

[mukund]

"That makes for 12 million images covering everything from the Boer War to the Beatles available on their web site!"

... the website which is not available anymore thanks to /.

Re:Quick thinking

[Hieronymus Howard]

The site's been suffering from the 'slashdot effect' since yesterday when the BBC and various other news sites announced it. Slashdot is a day behind everyone else with this story. I tried it a few hours ago and couldn't reach it then. No chance now.

HH

Re:Quick thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

right you are. slashdot is behind the curve on this story. haven't been able to get to this site since yesterday morning (US e.t). slashdot

Re:Quick thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Arrogant. The website wasn't available last night long before slashdot posted the story.

Re:Quick thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah Taco is an idiot. Maybe you could post a story without a link and make people search for the site?

With great power comes great responsibility. (I had to use a quote Taco would have read)

So who thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

that it would be a good idea to post an image heavy site on the front page of a news site... oh wait-- this is slashdot.

!!*

Yes

[3.5 stripes]

But you have to purchase them.

I saw the site yesterday. Nice resource.

Perfect job for interns!

[DrFlex]

Here in Canada, internship salaries are partly financed by the government.

The job of scanning 1 image of every second of 3500 hours worth of footage seems like the perfect intership.

Starts out interesting...
Quickly becomes boring...
After a while you want to throw up each time you make a scan...
Half way through you actually throw up every time you scan a second...
When you're done, all that is left is an insensible blow of twitching flesh!

Re:Perfect job for interns!

[11slashdot]

the system is automated

please see, for example, British Pathe Selects Optibase for Archive Management System

Licences?

[Dracolytch]

Does anyone know what the licences are for these pictures? I could think of a zillion cool art projects, if the pictures are available enough. ~D

Re:Licences?

[Robmonster]

I'm also keen to find this out........

Even I couldn't use all 12 million images, but would be interested if there were a subset available for public use.

Re:Licences?

[ideatrack]

According to the BBC (this is the only reference I can find with the site down) "All stills in the archive are freely available to the public for research and teaching purposes." So if you can showhorn it into one of those catagories, you're fine.

Re:Licences?

[nut]

From the website:
For private use only, but you can purchase additional rights, I don't know what the terms would be. Follow a link to a particular image and see shopping basket buttons and an email address archive.sales@itn.co.uk

Re:Licences?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the web pages and you'll find the posted fees are very pricey and very limited--hundreds of dollars to use them in a single business Powerpoint presentation for a single year. Do businesses really need photos of Hitler shaking hands with Mussolini? Dumb!

Odd, there was nothing about licensing a sensible use for the photos--in history books.

My sense as that this archive is run by commission obsessed salesmen/marketing types. They're unrealistic about prices and clueless about their potential market.

About the only bright spot, if I remember right, is that teachers can use the low-rez preview images in their classes for free.

Those wanting more for less might check out the US Archives. I believe they acquired the rights to one of the US newsreel companies. Right now the film is only available for viewing or copying to video tape (for a modest cost). But someone could create a photo archive out of it.

Link is slow, here's the text

[scumbucket]

London -- A collection of more than 12 million photographs, capturing scenes from the Boer War to the D-Day landings, was published on the Internet yesterday.

The images, which date back to the turn of the 20th century, have been captured from the archives of the British Pathe newsreel, a cinema news service that predated television.

The unique collection has been created by rescanning every inch of the archive's 3,500 hours of 35mm film.

A still image has been produced from every second of film, ranging from the earliest flickering monochrome pictures of the Boer War in 19th-century Africa, to Pathe's coverage of London in the swinging sixties, to the opium dens of Ann Arbor, Michigan where Cmdr Taco and his minions hold sway.

Peter Fydler, archive marketing director at Britain's Independent Television News, which owns British Pathe, said the collection should provide a powerful learning aid and a trip down memory lane.

"By using the newsreel archive to create a huge collection of still images, people can have access free of charge to printable pictures, which will add to their enjoyment of history," he said.

The collection can be accessed at http://www.britishpathe.com.

Memorable images include John Lennon and Paul McCartney with their 1964 NME award, and two unidentified soldiers seen after their rescue from Dunkirk in 1940. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is pictured enjoying a football match at London's Wembley Stadium at the height of the Second World War.

Wow

[Sir Haxalot]

That makes for 12 million images covering everything from the Boer War to the Beatles available on their web site!
That makes for there server dying under the Slasdhot effect!

Re:Wow

[pvt_medic]

just wait till one day when big brother gets really bored and categorizes the slashdot effect as a denial of service attack

Historical benefit

[BWJones]

So, the posting of photographic archives like this are crucial to historians and historical research. It is absolutely amazing how much information can be gleaned from photographs in terms of street names, individuals, automobile license plates etc... that enable one to pull out the history from bits of information surrounding the subject in photographs. Recently, I was given access to an archive of photos from my late grandfather who was in the OSS, and I am absolutely amazed at the amount of history in these photos. There are images of the meeting with Stalin, Rosevelt and Churchill, images of partisans stringing up Musolini, images of streets and individuals that I would absolutely love to spend time investigating, perhaps even getting another Ph.D. thesis out of it.

Re:Historical benefit

[torpor]

I recently moved to Germany and a good friend of mine invited me to go through the basement of one of her parents houses with her, part of a cleanup project, in case I found anything interesting for my new place.

I found a box of about 200 photo's from her father, collecting dust, from when he was in the Wermacht during WW2.

By trade, he was an architect and a fairly good one, and after the war he primarily worked on re-constructing and building new churches, so you can imagine what his b&w photo's of the areas of Europe in which he traveled during the war are like... and the inclusion of his Nazi war story makes for a very interesting story indeed, perhaps made more poignant by the fact that this is now my neighborhood. This stack of photo's is like a thick novel, in many ways. (I also have 3 of his and his brothes' oil paintings on the walls in my pad, incidentally... my 'other Moogs', heh heh...)

Truly fascinating stuff, and interesting how technology (portable, cheap b&w photography) allowed for a very intimate personal history to have formed, long after the departure of the individual.

Re:Historical benefit

[BWJones]

I am sure there are large number of cases such as these. It would be facsinating to provide a solution to this as many of these photos deteriorate over time. It seems to me that this is an ideal opportunity for some large corporation with ties to databases, information management or storage to provide a repository for images that people would like to scan in and submit so that these images are not lost to history. It would be great advertising and a good way to develop tools for the management of such resources.

I have been thinking actually of hosting many of these images on one of my servers when I get the time to see if anyone can fill in the history of some of my photos. Sort of like opensouce history. Yes?

Re:Historical benefit

[stephenbooth]

Great idea. Unfortunately, I suspect that as soon as such a project got off the ground there would be a backlash from privacy advocates claiming that it was an invasion of their privacy by the CIA/FBI/KGB/Home Land Security/Microsoft/USENET Cabal/etc.

I've clearly been in /.too long.

Stephen

Re:Historical benefit

[The Limp Devil]

Don't forget the many people who wish to change history. Being a historian can sometimes land you in hot water for just that reason. Just take a look at Turkish reactions to anyone who mentions the genocide of Armenians in 1918.

Re:Historical benefit

[PD]

That's exactly why everyone with a camera, regardless of skill or quality of equipment, should take photos of mundane objects in their neighborhood.

-What did a fire hydrant look like 100 years ago? I don't mean a fuzzy distant image, but what was the surface like? Was their writing on it? How many close-ups of fire hydrants as they were installed 100 years ago exist?

-What was a typical telephone pole like 100 years ago? Usually they have boxes and other things sprouting all over. These might have been different back then.

-How about street signs. I remember them being smaller when I was a kid, but I have no idea of how streets were marked 100 years ago.

These are things that are interesting to some people, and if you get out there and take a bunch of photos of your town, there will be historians who will thank you and also remember your name 100 or 200 years from now.

Remember, digital photos might not last. If you're going for the historical archive, you need to use black and white film, and black and white paper. (careful of the pseudo C-41 Black and White film that's out now. might not last)

Re:Historical benefit

[Threni]

"That's exactly why everyone with a camera, regardless of skill or quality of equipment, should take photos of mundane objects in their neighborhood."

I don't think there's going to be a shortage of mundane photographs anytime soon - especially with the fact that you can't even buy a mobile phone now without it having a camera embedded in it.

> Was their writing on it?

It probably was their writing, yes.

>How many close-ups of fire hydrants as they were >installed 100 years ago exist?
>What was a typical telephone pole like 100 years ago?

Man, are you tripping?

Re:Historical benefit

[PD]

You are obviously NOT the person who would be interested in these photographs. That's OK.

But just because you can't imagine being interested in these types of photographs does not mean that there are not others who would be.

Re:Historical benefit

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we'd hate to know what color those hydrants were...

Re:Historical benefit

[stephenbooth]

True. There's a whole lot of revisionism goes on; somtimes with a pen, sometimes with a sword and sometimes with a broken bottle or fist.

I'm sure that documentaries and history books in Iraq told a very different story of Western influences in Middle Eastern events and politics to those in the US and Europe. Actually, something I'm tempted to do someday is get a history book that's used in UK schools to teach the American Revolution and a book used in US schools to teach the same period to compare them. I know that the shows I've seen on the History Channel (that were clearly made for US consumption) put a very different slant to what I was taught at school here in England. For example when I studied it in school two points that were very firmly emphasised was that many of the Colonial army were former Redcoats and that for much of the conflict the army fielded by the British was largely made up of mercenries from Germany and Belgium. Another factor that was emphasised was that the colonials used methods and tactics that were contrary to the accepted rules of warfare at the time.

Stephen

Re:Historical benefit

[PD]

Good point. Take 3 B&W photos, one each through a red, green, and blue filter.

Re:Historical benefit

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you're curious, when I was in school (in the U.S.) I didn't learn about the British using mercenaries (or I don't remember it), but I did learn about the guerilla tactics used by the revolutionaries. I don't remember anything in particular about former Redcoats fighting on the American side, but I should think that would be fairly obvious considering how many of them were living in America. But is that revisionism? For such an old war, revisionism would be kind of pointless, but I'd bet national pride would lead to a bit of bias in the writers of textbooks.

Re:Historical benefit

[whereiswaldo]

I know that the shows I've seen on the History Channel (that were clearly made for US consumption) put a very different slant to what I was taught at school here in England.

Here's a simple example:

Is the cup half empty or half full?

My answer to this is that it depends on what you want to emphasize. If I was thirsty, I'd say it was half empty. If I wasn't, I would probably say half full. Two historical points of view can say the same thing, but in a completely different way. You have to read between the lines. Of course, anybody can bend the truth, but that's another (probably common) matter.

Re:Historical benefit

[Threni]

"You are obviously NOT the person who would be interested in these photographs. That's OK.

But just because you can't imagine being interested in these types of photographs does not mean that there are not others who would be."

I have to admit - your logic is impeccable.

Archives of historic/public-domain images?

[AtariAmarok]

Does anyone know of any archives of historic and otherwise public-domain (IP-hassle free) images? Something that might allow sharing (contributions) from the community?

Someone suggested Deviantart, but it appeared to be only recent artwork.

Re:Archives of historic/public-domain images?

[abevilac]

The Library of Congress has a long term project called "American Memory" which collects images in American history though some are copyrighted others are public domain. http://memory.loc.gov/

Re:Archives of historic/public-domain images?

[Anonymous Coward]

check your local public librarys website...

the kansas city public library has a HUGE collection of old pics of KC some going back to the 1880s. Theyve got pics of union station being built! It was on the outskirts of town at the time! Fascinating stuff

http://www.kclibrary.org/resources/sc/index.cfm

most arent public domain, but theyre high-res & very interesting. Ive spent hours looking through them.

nothings cooler than seeing a pic of your morning commute 80 years ago choked with model-Ts

Reminded of a Billy Joel tune

[ajensen]

The first thing that came to mind as I was browsing the gallery was the classic tune "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel -- all that history, crammed into one exceptional website. Absolutely fantastic.

Bravo!

-a

Re:already?

[TopShelf]

Heck, this was dead even before you could fp! I tried checking it from The Mysterious Future, but it was already DOA.

How long till they start charging

[Anonymous Coward]

How long till they start charging because their bandwidth is going to go through the roof. Wonder if there are any (c) images in the bunch.

Mmm...

[grub]

Mmmm.... 19th century pr0n in all it's unshaven glory...

Re:Mmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, grubie, tell me, why are you such a fucking no-class wanker with no sense of culture?

Re:Mmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had mod points so I could mod you the fuck down. In 50 messages so far, yours was the ONLY one that was so stupidly out-of-place as to scream "I am a juvenile idiot". Do us a favour, FAOD.

Re:Mmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

"FAOD"? Loser, you can't even get your rants right.

Wow is there server gonna die

[Sir Haxalot]

Google Cache

Re:Wow is there server gonna die

[Anonymous Coward]

THEIR not THERE

Americans can't even write anymore, forget historic documents about the USA.

Re:Wow is there server gonna die

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, it's no use since Google doesn't cache images.

...and it runs Linux!

[borgdows]

according to Netcraft, the website runs Linux Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) Debian GNU/Linux mod_ssl/2.8.9 OpenSSL/0.9.6g

I wonder what is the database used though.

Re:...and it runs Linux!

[zebs]

MS Access on a shared drive?!

they only coved the 'B's?

[Anonymous Coward]

12 million images covering everything from the Boer War to the Beatles

in reverse order besides? (the Beatles to the Boer War)

(and as lame as this post is, the lameness filter missed it.)

Uhh, not quite...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Uhh, no, not quite accurate. I tried looking at the archive after reading this story on the BBC yesterday. It was down then, so I'm not surprised it's still down now. More a case of BBCed than slashdotted.

Give them a few days to realise that their press releases were a bit more effective than they originally anticipated and I'm sure that the site will be alright.

Re:Uhh, not quite...

[gl4ss]

it's not down now, at least not to me.

quite nifty.. certainly useful if you're doing some school presentation or whatever.

.

Photo Coverage

[nucal]

I can only hope that they covered the Goatse image ...

no, I mean REALLY covered it!

Baldrick!

[adeyadey]

You beat me to it. But I do have a cunning plan..

Re:Baldrick!

[robmered]

As cunning as a fox who has just been appointed as Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?

Re:Baldrick!

[mink]

So cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel?

Will we feel the wrath when...

[DMCBOSTON]

...the /. 'ers remember who bought the Bettmann Archive?
According to the article, "Peter Fydler, archive marketing director at..." which implies they WILL sell it, probably commercially to news organizations or whatever (think History Channel)seems balanced by "By using the newsreel archive to create a huge collection of still images, people can have access free of charge to printable pictures, which will add to their enjoyment of history," he said.
So it seems that this archive will be freely available for non-commercial and research use.

Karma

[Anonymous Coward]

WHORE

Re:If you can't spell license

[Anonymous Coward]

C0RNH0LE JEW C0RNH0LE Y0U!!!

Do they have pictures?

[Daath]

Do they have pictures of their server burning right now? ;)

Great...

[hookedup]

I couldnt get on the site _before_ it was posted on slashdot, guess i'll have to wait a couple days now. I'm guessing mirrors are out of the question :)

Article submission:

[stienman]

cyberpantheon writes "The Globe and Mail is reporting that British Pathe was slashdotted back to the 19th century"

-Adam

Just the B's?

[worst_name_ever]

That makes for 12 million images covering everything from the Boer War to the Beatles

How many images will there be once they finish the rest of the alphabet?

Re:SO MUCH ANGER AND HOSTILLITY

[Anonymous Coward]

But at least he's not an Apple user!

Mirror?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have, but my idle 10 terabyte storage farm is in the shop.

Next, Churchill to the Clash

[Thud457]

"covering everything from the Boer War to the Beatles"

Why'd the skip the A's?

OIC. Do people ever refer to

[Anonymous Coward]

you as being "special" or "slow"..?

Re:If you can't spell license

[benito27uk]

No they do know how to spell licence, just they use the British way.

From the site:

[RenderMonkey]

"Now you are here you can preview items from the entire 3500 hour British Pathe Film Archive which covers news, sport, social history and entertainment from 1896 to 1970.

"You can also license higher resolution copies of the same items for PowerPoint Presentations and Web Publishing, or simply buy a still from the item for private use.

"Requests for other rights or formats should be addressed to archive.sales@itn.co.uk Just type in what you are looking for above and within minutes you could own a little piece of history!"

Their FAQ sortof addresses the allowable uses of the previews:

"What am I allowed to do with my free Preview Files?

"They were made available on-line principally as an educational resource. We hope that they will stimulate an interest in modern history amongst younger people, and help older generations to understand the 20th century in a broader context.

"We encourage users to share Preview Files that they download with colleagues and friends around the world via e-mail. We would ask that this is not achieved by publishing Preview Files on-line. The only instance where we feel this might be appropriate is within a closed user group in an educational environment.

"Above all we would like users to enjoy discovering the past through our wonderful archive, and would hope that in return the images downloaded are not misused in any way."

Really specific there, one would think they could come up with a slightly more defined policy.

On the site that handles sales of British Pathe assets they specifically state that:

"The British Pathe archive is perhaps the world's most famous newsreel collection. Spanning the period 1896-1970, the collection comprises 3,500 hours and contains some of the most iconic images ever caught on camera. The entire archive has been remastered and fully digitised. It is now possible to view every second of this outstanding collection online through this web site and there is absolutely no charge for this facility.

"Unfortunately, British Pathe material is not available for license to companies based in North America or other NTSC territories."

Of course that is for the actual footage, no help with licensing for the still images though. A great archive and it will be an excellent resource for many. Hopefully they can clarify the use of the preview still images though.

Re:From the site:

[meringuoid]

"We encourage users to share Preview Files that they download with colleagues and friends around the world via e-mail. We would ask that this is not achieved by publishing Preview Files on-line. The only instance where we feel this might be appropriate is within a closed user group in an educational environment.

"Above all we would like users to enjoy discovering the past through our wonderful archive, and would hope that in return the images downloaded are not misused in any way."

Really specific there, one would think they could come up with a slightly more defined policy.

Surely this is the sort of thing /. would like to see more of? Pathe have put a vast archive up on the net for public access. The copyright has in most cases not expired, and they still make money licencing this stuff to companies making history books or films or whatever. If anyone starts using this material commercially, they'll come down hard; I imagine the note about web usage is so that if some neo-Nazi twerp uses their wartime images for a site they'll have pretty solid grounds to have it pulled. But apart from that, download, share, and enjoy.

I think it's nice to see a large media company actually doing something like this and not being stuffy legalistic arses about it.

Re:From the site:

[virtual_mps]

Surely this is the sort of thing /. would like to see more of?...I imagine the note about web usage is so that if some neo-Nazi twerp uses their wartime images for a site they'll have pretty solid grounds to have it pulled.

Why would we want to see more of companies arbitrarily shutting down web sites they don't like?

I think it's nice to see a large media company actually doing something like this and not being stuffy legalistic arses about it.

Having a formal policy is a good thing, because then you know exactly what is and is not allowed. A fuzzy license effectively prevents you from using the content freely, because you open yourself up to future liability.

Re:From the site:

[RenderMonkey]

Well, actually it is exactly what I like to see, I know that I can convert PAL to NTSC effectively and am quite happy to see these archives available. If I have a need for any of the archives in a production I know exactly where to turn, and would be willing to pay any licensing fee's. My comment above was directed specifically to the lack of any licensing information regarding the still's available from the site. These would also be highly useful in a variety ways, yet there is no concrete information regarding their use. In their defense they may have been so focused on the use of the video/film assets that they failed to realize that the stills are a valuable asset for re-use as well. Producing any professional work without having clear licensing can be suicidal, so the still images on their site are off-limits as it were. I applaude their achievement, and hope that more US based archives take their lead. However I would much rather see even a more restrictive, but concrete licensing posted clearly.

Slashdotting

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes for 12 million images covering everything from the Boer War to the Beatles available on their web site!

Not anymore.

History

[rf0]

Its nice to see this and hopefully it will be around for a while. I would be intrested to see what sort of technology the use for storing all this and quick recall. A nice FCA Array would be a nice starting point I suppose

rus

Re:If you can't spell license

[Dan-DAFC]

Actually, it's still wrong. In British English licence is a noun and license is a verb (c.f. practice and practise).

Not the same

[Zog The Undeniable]

The pictures aren't the same without the clipped middle-class British accents of the announcers. It's virtually impossible to find anyone over here who speaks like that anymore, so I suspect they were putting it on for effect ;-)

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's virtually impossible to find anyone over here who speaks like that anymore, so I suspect they were putting it on for effect ;-) "

Or that the accent was a product of the time, which was 60 years ago.

of course...

[Bobman1235]

All that work goes up in a puff of smoke as the slashdot effect takes its deadly toll....

One image for every second

[HungWeiLo]

They can accomplish the same goal by streaming their videos on Windows Media or RealPlayer! They don't even have to hire anyone to do the manual labor.

I'm going to sue slashdot for misinformation

[dcordeiro]

3500x3600=12.6 Million...

They should refer them as 12 Mebi pictures then :P

Re:I'm going to sue slashdot for misinformation

[Anonymous Coward]

Mebi. Mebi not.

God could not be reached for comment.

[Starlet Monroe]

In related news, Pathe has delivered an Immediate Cease And Desist letter to God, claiming prior ownership of all history and requiring that God pay a licensing fee before continuing to direct human events.

Typical Slashdot joke:

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, did you even read it????

You're new here, aren't you?

javascript?

[bobrk]

I went to the site with Safari and it gave me a javascript warning! Sheesh. Please. Safari has javascript. What are they looking for?

Then it played its cheesy flash intro and stopped.

I'd love to see the pictures, but they have to get rid of the M$ bloatware.

Re:javascript?

[jerde]

I went to the site with Safari and it gave me a javascript warning! Sheesh. Please. Safari has javascript. What are they looking for?

Wait for the page to load, maybe? Before the whole page loads, the script doesn't execute. The site is under heavy load, so you have to be patient.

Then it played its cheesy flash intro and stopped.

I'd love to see the pictures, but they have to get rid of the M$ bloatware.

Uhm, dude, Microsoft-bashing is fun, but neither javascript nor Flash are Microsoft technologies. You're blaming them why exactly?

- Peter

Re:javascript?

[bobrk]

Wait for the page to load, maybe? Before the whole page loads, the script doesn't execute. The site is under heavy load, so you have to be patient.

Hey, you're right. Thanks for the tip.

I called it micro$oft bloatware because many sites today are designed for IE only. Typically when a site tells me I don't have something I know I have, then I assume they're not checking for the right things. I've seen it before and I'll see it again, I'm sure.

And I'm very well aware that neither javascript nor Flash are M$ technologies.

Free stuff on archive.org

[Bazman]

www.archive.org has a fantastic collection of free movies, including some newsreels, all free to use and redistribute - look here.

The Prelinger archive there is a wonderful treasury of historical material. And the free license means you can cut n paste any of it into your own video projects.

Re:If you can't spell license

[Dan-DAFC]

Or more correctly, the original poster was indeed correct, so just ignore me.

If your tastes are as morbid as mine (NSFW)

[jamehec]

You can get plenty of historic death photos at cadaver.org (AdultCheck ID required). It's fascinating to see that "the good old days" had their share of violence and gore. Dunno if they take submissions, though.

"Criminals are made, not born." Andrew Kehoe

wow,

[tka]

that many pictures must have somekind of effect on images.google.com. ;)

That is ofcourse the pictures are cached to it.

Isn't that a *BSD site?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't cadaver.org a *BSD download mirror?

Anyone care to mirror this site?

[heironymouscoward]

:)

Hehe. Hehehehehehehe.

Re:If you can't spell license

[Dracolytch]

Ahh... Probably someone in a foul humour about the colour of their armour. Look 'em up before you complain... http://www.m-w.com ~D

So what's wrong with MPEG?

[clickety6]

Or am I supposed to print them, staple them together and make a flip book like the good ol' days?

Re:So what's wrong with MPEG?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could just click on the "Watch Video for free" option instead?

I'm stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

In communist Canda, the interns ship you!

Re:Slashdotted !!

[danknight]

Anyone have a mirror ??..

GG, Photoshop Phriday

[twoallbeefpatties]

Just what we needed, lots of new material for the Something Awful goons.

Well, let's see...

[RealisticWeb.com]

3500 hrs = 210000 min = 12,600,000 seconds

At one picture per second, that comes out to 12.6 million pictures for the whole alphabet. My guess is that the 3500 hr estimate was a bit hight which would bring the actually number closed to 12 mil even for the whole thing.

Oh, you were kidding!...nevermind

How much of this is uncopyrighted?

[Animats]

Just scanning it in doesn't renew copyright. See Bridgeman vs. Corel. Much of the older material is in the public domain. Notice that on the site, they don't mention copyright; they talk about "licensing". That's probably because making a false claim of copyright is illegal in some countries, including the US.

If Lessig ever gets his "bulk copyright clearance" operation off the ground, this is something for them to work on.

Re:How much of this is uncopyrighted?

[symbolic]

So how is it they can 'license' something they no longer own?

Re:How much of this is uncopyrighted?

[whoda]

They were talking to SCO the other day....

Re:How much of this is uncopyrighted?

[Animats]

So how is it they can 'license' something they no longer own?

Well, there's the EULA approach, which has been held to work in cases where the underlying material is not copyrightable (ProCD vs. Zeidenberg). That doesn't bind third parties. If someone licenses content uncopyrighted content and an unrelated third party with lawful access to it copies it (as from a web site), the EULA doesn't apply to the third party.

Then there's the Corbis approach. Corbis adds digital rights management information to its pictures and then copyrights the digital rights management information. They then claim that copying the picture with the DRM info violates their copyright, and removing the DRM info violates the DMCA. It's not clear how well this would hold up in court. Section 1202 of the DMCA prohibits the "intentional removal of copyright management information" if it will "induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any right under this title." So far, nobody seems to have litigated this.

Excuse my ignorance, but someone has to ask...

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

How do you pronounce Pathe?

Re:Excuse my ignorance, but someone has to ask...

[StressedEd]

Pathe, roghly pronounced

Path ey

Path -> (PATHalogical) ;-)
ey -> (hEY)

(if you understand LaTeX accents and how to pronounce French words its basically path\'e)

Re:Excuse my ignorance, but someone has to ask...

[Simonetta]

I'm not sure, but I assume that this word has an english pronounciation on the first syllable and the last vowel retains the original French pronounciation:

'pah-thay'

Or, more precisely, an unvoiced bilabial plosive schwa followed by a dental fricative diphthongal.

Of course, since I'm never actually heard the word pronounced, I'm possibly wrong.

Re:Excuse my ignorance, but someone has to ask...

[BluBrick]

I'd go with however you pronounce "passe"...

but with a lisp.

Read the fine print

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares. This archive may be interesting to browse around, but browsing isn't particularly easy due to the way it's organized (though organizing 12 million images is admittedly tough).

Plus you can't actually do anything with the images. Even the lo-res images aren't public domain and you have to pay to access the hi-res stuff.

I'm surprised this was even posted on /. -- seems more like an advertisement to me...

Re:Read the fine print

[efflux]

Even the lo-res images aren't public domain and you have to pay to access the hi-res stuff.

Are they not? Some of the older ones might be. Just because companies who have been scanning in photos/stills that have passed into the public domain have been calling their digital forms copyrightable, it doesn't mean that it will hold up.

Re:Historical benefit -- Make Yours Available

[Nom du Keyboard]

Recently, I was given access to an archive of photos from my late grandfather who was in the OSS, and I am absolutely amazed at the amount of history in these photos.

I hope you will make these photos available too. These days of Internet and ever falling storage make the cost (to you) minor, while the benefit to the world, large.

It's never been this great before.

How long before the entire movies?

[Nom du Keyboard]

their 3500 hours of 35mm film

At 2GB/hour for DVD quality, that's only 7TB. That's not as much as it sounds like. Seriously. Your desktop today can have near 1TB for less than $1000.

It's hard to keep up with the current reality of amazingly cheap storage by even recent historical standards.

Did they scan the best pic of the 24?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Did they use a human to pick the best pic out of the 24 that second of film? Or just automate scanning to scan 1, skip 23, rinse and repeat?

The value would be greater if they displayed 24 thumbnails on the screen and had someone click on the best one. Even some bad choices would likely not be any worse than just every 24th one.

History on the Web...

[PeterT]

The National Archives (USA) has a great collection of photos and documents online. www.archives.gov

any Doctor Who stuff?

[British]

I'm hoping some promising geeks are looking to find missing Doctor Who episodes here, probably to no avail.

Right now, checking anything and everything that is British car related, although very slowly.

How did they Scan that much Film?

[aflat362]

And how long did it take?

From the article: rescanning every inch of the archive's 3,500 hours of 35mm film

not sure how many inches of 35mm film makes one hour but I'm sure that's a lot of inches to scan.

Leads me to wonder what scanning equipment they chose to do the job.

Re:OSS

[michaelhood]

Open Source, eh? Bravo.

Microfiche'd newspapers lost forever

[Anonymous Coward]

On another note, you mention microfilm and microfiche. These media are perfect examples of how a new-fangled storage medium can take over quickly, just becuause it is new-fangled, and then turn out to really suck in the end. Read Nicholas Baker's book Double Fold if you really want to get incensed about the loss of fantastic amounts of nuance and data from "outdated" forms of media like newspapers, magazines, and books.

I have not read this book, but watched an interview with Nicholas Baker where he described the loss. I'll explain it a bit for those who haven't heard about this.

Apparently the New York Times transferred their entire archive of newspapers onto tiny bits of microfiche, and then tossed the whole lot. The microfiche is useful in terms of library use, but terrible for archival purposes. The original prints had wonderful layouts and colours. Baker described some of them as works of art. The microfiche copies are high contrast, and have lost all their aesthetic quality.

Baker says that if newspapers are simply left stacked up, they will weather the ages pretty gracefully. Some remain today, obviously, to make the comparasin.

What destroyed the NYT's archive was the mad rush to embrace a technological solution without being terribly thoughtful about purpose behind archiving. The archivists at the time were satisfied with a reasonably legible copy of the text. But today, historians want more.

Digital formats could similarly fool us into losing a great deal of today's worthy materials. While it is conceivable that sometime in the future, technology will advance to the point where 99.9999999% of the quality of an artifact can be retained and reproduced artificially, we are not there yet. It is simply not possible to convert all the data present on a 35mm film to a compact, archival media, like a DVD. _khl

down still

[shione]

6:23pm +10 GMT and its still not working. :(