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Copyrights and CD-Rs Endanger Audio History

Posted by Soulskill on from the digital-erosion dept.

SEWilco writes "A study by the Library of Congress has found that many audio recordings are being lost due to copyright restrictions and temporary media. Old audio recordings are protected by a various US state copyrights, so it's hard for preservationists to get and copy material. Recent data is threatened by being put on writable CDs, because CD-Rs begin to lose data after a few years, so recordings from as recently as 9/11 and the 2008 elections are already at risk."

6 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Depends on the Discs by Oceanplexian · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have some optical media that's from ~2001. Most of it's just fine, even after a tortured life. I trust high quality optical media more than anything else.

    CDs are rarely an all-or-nothing affair. Even if you do lose data, you tend to not lose it all in one freak accident, not to mention solid state and magnetic media make fantastic paperweights after a solar storm.

    1. Re:Depends on the Discs by iluvcapra · · Score: 4, Informative
      Since CDs have Reed-Solomon and parity for error correction, and even if samples fail the player will interpolate, you can have a pretty ruined disk before it won't play anymore. It is all or nothing once it starts to fail though-- at the point the interpolation can no longer repair a dirty section, the CD will simply drop out.

      I also recently (yesterday actually!) opened an old DVD+R (with an HFS volume) from 2002 and rearchived it to a new DVD. It still read perfectly, but it's been stored in a cool dark place, and has been mounted maybe 10 times.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    2. Re:Depends on the Discs by X0563511 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Cool and dark are the really important parts. On write-once optical media, UV will fade the dye making it harder to distinguish pit/land transitions, while high temperature will melt the unmelted dye, making the pits/lands closer together (thus also making the transitions more difficult to discern).

      Using RW media will alleviate some of this problem, as this uses a phase-change mechanism instead which is more "digital" than the dye used in write-once.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  2. Re:Vanishing People by Doctor_Jest · · Score: 3, Informative

    It reminds me of the Dr. Who episode (the David Tenant series) where the doctor is aboard a space cruise liner called "The Titanic".... their analysis of humanity was suspect, having cannibalistic rituals after going to war with Turkey or something like that.

    And Kylie Minogue looks fabulous for a 40 year old.... :)

    --
    It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
  3. Re:Vanishing People by Inf0phreak · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well... to be fair the guide had faked his degree in earthonomics.

    --
    ________
    Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
  4. Use a camcorder by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    So where is the (completely legal under US law) software that the Library of Congress can use to back up Blu-Rays that have been released recently?

    It's called the analog hole, and the MPAA has endorsed it.