Invisible to the future [Posted by Troy]
For the last few years, there has been some concern about the health of the historic record (see "Digital Dark Ages"). Some people are afraid that future generations will not be able to study our times, which is ironic since most of us believe that we are living in the best documented times ever thanks to CNN, the Web, etc. The reality could be that we are turning invisible for several reasons:
Disney factor: Disney (and others) are fighting to keep copyright locked at 1923 so that Mickey remains under control. The length of Public domain has been extended from 50 years to over 75 years, which has the effect of limitting the availability of documents, film, TV, music, scholarly writings for research purposes. (See the issues with "Eyes on the Prize") TV and film factor: Thourghout the 20th Century, television and film replaced paper as the primary mode of public discourse. Much of this has not been preserved or is not being preserved because their is little profit in it. The TV/Film industry still sees itself primarily as entertainment/news which focuses on the immediate and not the future. Shift in Personal communication:In the 1800s, family and friends used letters to communicate (well, literate people did). Part of most days was spent writing letters to others. This captured thoughts and glimpses into life. With the rise of the phone & email, we have lost much of this communication. Wouldn't this blog be an interesting document for the historic record (or maybe not). The reality is that this data will probably be easily wiped away if we stop paying radio userland to host it. Anyway, there is a fear that the future will have very little documentation to use to Study us.
Playback issues: As software changes, a greal of information (business, scholarly, and personal) becomes locked away into file types that may not be readable within five years. Information is not being migrated to new file types. For instance, if I didn't print out my papers from college but I had my floppy discs, it would be almost impossible for me to read the wordperfect files I used at that time. All of these factors are working together to slowly erase the record of the late 20th century. Several groups are working to prevent this (see The Internet Archive).
12:12:46 PM  permanent link Google It!
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