<
https://walledculture.org/technological-progress-outdated-copyright-laws-huge-swathes-of-our-cinematic-culture-lost-forever/>
"Physical books can be bought, shared, and accessed in libraries quite easily.
Films in a physical form, on the other hand, are hard to acquire, share or view
in archives. Writing in the Guardian, the non-fiction filmmaker Charlie
Shackleton says that 90% of archive collections consist of film prints that
will never be seen. Moreover, he points out that as streaming becomes the main
way that people view films, the situation is getting worse, not better:
Such films [held in archives] are at least well preserved, lest they one day
cross over into that lucky 10% that commands public attention. Not so in the
wilds of streaming. Any film “bought” on Amazon Prime is yours to view for
only as long as Amazon retains the permission of the copyright holder to
show it to you. And if those same copyright holders could not be trusted to
protect our cultural heritage back when films were physical things that
could be organised and inventoried, they seem unlikely to prove more
reliable in the digital era.
Timothy B Lee provides some hard numbers that reveal how bad things are:
Fifteen years ago, you could find almost anything on Netflix, from the
latest blockbusters to classic movies to popular television series. In
total, Netflix had around 60,000 titles available.
Today, Netflix’s streaming service only has about one-tenth as many titles
available. While it has some amazing original content, the back catalog is
unimpressive."
Via Glyn Moody, who wrote "this is madness"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
