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Smithsonian Releases 128-Year-Old Recording of Alexander Graham Bell
redletterdave writes "Thanks to a newly developed audio extraction technology called optical scanning, the Smithsonian was able to recover the voice of Alexander Graham Bell from one of his hundreds of discs he donated to the museum, which were once considered 'mute artifacts.' Since many of the collected recordings are very fragile due to their age and experimental nature, optical scanning is a non-invasive procedure that creates a high-resolution digital map of the disc or cylinder, which is then reconstructed and used to simulate the motion of a stylus moving through its grooves to reproduce the original audio content. Bell, who created this recording on a wax and cardboard disc on April 15, 1885, can be heard clearly saying, 'In witness whereof — hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell.'"
The link in the summary goes to the International Business Times, which links to a copy of the 11-second audio clip on Soundcloud that requires flash to run. The IBT article links to the original articles at the Smithsonian. Here's a direct link to the MP3 file on the Smithsonian site.
Something similar has also been used more recently to play a record that doesn't exist anymore in physical format, but had a photograph printed in a book that survives. They were able to optically play a scan of the printed photograph of the record.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Not in the US.
Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (1999) sets precedent for this remaining public domain.
"A photograph which is no more than a copy of a work of another as exact as science and technology permits lacks originality. That is not to say that such a feat is trivial, simply not original."
Before CSI was even born, X-Files did it. An episode involved a pot that had been crafted in a room where Jesus Christ was speaking, and a reed being brushed against it recorded him into the clay.