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Lost media

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Theatrical release poster for the lost film London after Midnight, the last known copy of which was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire[1]

Lost media is any media that is believed to no longer exist in any format, or for which any copies cannot be located. 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

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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

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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

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The Library of Congress estimates that a large portion of the earliest musical recordings, from the late 19th century to the early 20th 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.[9]

A concept related to lost music is "lostwave", a term coined on the Internet for extant recordings of music for which little to no information about its authors or origin exists. Some examples of lostwave, such as "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet" and "Ulterior Motives", has been the subject of online crowdsourced research since the late 2010s.[10][11][12]

Lost video games

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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 unable to be redownloaded after its removal from the PlayStation Network within a year.[13] 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 reasons beyond Nintendo's control.[14]

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.[15]

Lost electronic data

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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.[16] 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,[17] 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.[18]

Lost Internet media

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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

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References

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  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ "GitHub will store all of its public open source code in an Arctic vault". Engadget. November 15, 2019. Archived from the original on November 15, 2019. Retrieved January 21, 2023.
  7. ^ "Look inside the doomsday vault that may hold the world's most important data". NBC News. June 7, 2017. Retrieved January 21, 2023.
  8. ^ "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.
  9. ^ "Lost Recording List". National Recording Preservation Board. Library of Congress. n.d. Archived from the original on October 19, 2023.
  10. ^ Dazed (February 27, 2024). "Lostwave: how the internet became obsessed with lost songs". Dazed. Retrieved April 29, 2024.
  11. ^ O'Grady, Carrie (February 28, 2024). "Everyone Knows That: can you identify the lost 80s hit baffling the internet?". The Guardian. Retrieved May 22, 2024.
  12. ^ "Mysterious Viral '80s Song "Everybody Knows That" Finally Identified After Three-Year Hunt". Stereogum. April 29, 2024. Retrieved May 22, 2024.
  13. ^ McWhertor, Michael; Sarkar, Samit (May 5, 2015). "Konami pulls P.T. from PlayStation Store, no longer available for re-download (update)". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on May 19, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2023.
  14. ^ "Another Game Has Been Delisted from Nintendo eShop". January 25, 2022.
  15. ^ Wilde, Thomas (July 12, 2023). "Researchers find 87% of U.S. classic video games are out of print and 'critically endangered'". GeekWire. Retrieved April 1, 2024.
  16. ^ Scott, Jessica (September 23, 2013). "Long-term Digital Storage: Simple Steps to Get Started". History Associates. Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  17. ^ "What is emulation?". Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Archived from the original on October 24, 2015. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  18. ^ Blakeslee, Sandra (March 20, 1990). "Lost on Earth: Wealth of Data Found in Space". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 9, 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2023.

Further reading

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