A Good Shellacking

 

DamagedCDROn April Fool’s Day of 2003, the folks at NPR’s All Things Considered and the Library of Congress teamed up for an epic prank. They announced that the LOC was in the process of transferring its entire music collection to 78rpm records.

“The whole history of recorded sound has been a case of one technology leapfrogging over a previous one,” (explains reporter Rick) Karr. “But in the last few decades, the changes from vinyl to tape cassette to CD to MP3 have shortened the life span of most music collections. “But thanks to a grant from the Smolian-Giovannoni Foundation, all of these audio formats are being transferred onto 10-inch wide, 78 rpm shellac disks — the one rock-solid format archivists have identified that works every time.”

Even today the story, still found in NPR’s online archive, gets an occasional, “Can this be real?” inquiry.

For humor to work there has to be an element of truth in it. And the truth here is that nobody really knows how long digital media will last. Anything that interrupts the flow of zeros and ones will make media unusable, whether that results from stray magnetic fields on hard drives or the physical failure of digital tape or optical storage devices like CDs and DVDs.

In the days of analog television, a small crease or edge damage to video tape meant a momentary breakup or skew at the bottom of the picture. For digital tape, the exact same damage can result in unrecoverable loss.

If all of your photographic and video memories of the last 10 years live on a hard drive or CD-Rs, will you still be able to access them in another 10, 20 or 30 years?

As for the Library of Congress, they take their mission to preserve the nation’s cultural heritage seriously. Their Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division is dedicated to saving all manner of media. To this end, they request almost $87 million from Congress to run their state-of-the-art facility in Culpepper, Virginia. It does everything an American citizen would want their government to do — except provide access to the people who pay for it.

Most of the Library’s collection is for research appointments only. Professional transfers are only available to those who seek out original copyright holders and come bearing all the appropriate legal permissions. All of which poses the question: “If you remove a country’s culture from the people and keep it locked away in a vault, are you really preserving it?” How can you add these things to the collective memory of future generations if they’re never exposed to it?

One of their few online offerings is The National Jukebox, which contains their collection of Victor recordings from 1901 to 1925. This browsable database contains some 10,000 recordings, like this snippet of Al Jolson singing an early Irving Berlin hit, I’ve Got My Captain Working For Me Now:

Not exactly something you’d put on the stereo and crank up.

RecordingFor almost the first 50 years, all audio was recorded and played back the same way – through the brute force of sound waves vibrating on a diaphragm placed at the bottom of an enormous brass horn. That technique both etched the sound onto the surface of the recording medium and reversed the process when played back.

The frequency range was very limited. If you wanted to be a hit on records you had better be LOUD. Brass band loud. Opera singer loud. Al Jolson loud.

The years after the First World War would see dramatic developments in microphones, radio and amplification. In 1925, Western Electric (which would soon become part of the Bell System Laboratories) introduced the electronically amplified, electromagnetic disc cutter. Waiting around the corner was a new type of singer, the crooner, a baritone with a relaxed and easy delivery that was way more intimate and attuned to the mic.

It’s not a coincidence that the cutoff date of what’s available ends with the introduction of electrical recording. Everything after that remains the property of boomer children and corporations determined to squeeze every last drop of commercial viability from the creativity of prior generations.

Published in Culture, Entertainment, General
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  1. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    EJ,

    “If you remove a country’s culture from the people and keep it locked away in a vault, are you really preserving it?”

    Great post, great point. In Stalin’s Russia there were libraries supposedly free to the people. However, the individual was required to make a request to see a book in advance with proper justification. Years later when the USSR was gone they checked the records most books had never been taken out once. The libraries were sort of book mausoleums like Lenin’s tomb in Red Square.

    Free to the People (550x413)

    The old Robber Baron Andrew Carnegie, who before his death donated most of his vast fortune, endowed the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh where he had made that fortune. Notice the inscription FREE TO THE PEOPLE. Isn’t it ironic that the old Robber Baron gave it away free and meant it. When I was a little boy I loved trips to the Carnegie Library and the Carnegie Museum too.

    Nobody is as stingy as a Marxist.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #1
  2. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    I remember hearing how much of the US census data from the 70s is now totally unretrievable.  It was stored on tape reels, but the physical material, if not occasionally unwound and respooled, eventually congeals together or starts to delaminate.  Punch cards are still usable if you have a machine to read them (not many of them left, but easily replicated if needed).  Early celluloid has a tendency to self-combust as it ages.

    This problem is huge, and it is why the big tech firms are building massive data centers all over the world – the only way to make certain that digital files remain viable is to keep transferring them to newer media, then making endless backups.

    Even if you maintain a cache of old hardware around, you do have to occasionally fire it up or it will stop functioning – electrolytic capacitors, if allowed to sit idle for too many years, will cook off the first time you fire them up – you have to either replace or gradually recondition them to avoid this.  So if you still have your college papers on a hard disk from 1985 or 1995, better pray you can get them off before it’s too late.

    • #2
  3. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    skipsul:I remember hearing how much of the US census data from the 70s is now totally unretrievable. It was stored on tape reels, but the physical material, if not occasionally unwound and respooled, eventually congeals together or starts to delaminate. Punch cards are still usable if you have a machine to read them (not many of them left, but easily replicated if needed). Early celluloid has a tendency to self-combust as it ages.

    This problem is huge, and it is why the big tech firms are building massive data centers all over the world – the only way to make certain that digital files remain viable is to keep transferring them to newer media, then making endless backups.

    Even if you maintain a cache of old hardware around, you do have to occasionally fire it up or it will stop functioning – electrolytic capacitors, if allowed to sit idle for too many years, will cook off the first time you fire them up – you have to either replace or gradually recondition them to avoid this. So if you still have your college papers on a hard disk from 1985 or 1995, better pray you can get them off before it’s too late.

    Skip,

    I’ve got to say that this is evidence of stupidity or lack of will or both. The price of backing up and the media and equipment required to do it keeps rocketing downward. Only the shortsighted that expect to take advantage of the digital age without dealing with the responsibilities could possibly let the things you are talking about happen.

    Then again when you see geniuses like Josh Earnest, Psaki, and Harf getting ahead you realize just how bad things can get.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #3
  4. user_423975 Coolidge
    user_423975
    @BrandonShafer

    Great post! I would think optical disk like cd-r would be very reliable since the information is encoded in physical pits in the medium. Of course, that’s conditioned on the the medium being stable over a long time.

    • #4
  5. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Brandon Shafer:Great post!I would think optical disk like cd-r would be very reliable since the information is encoded in physical pits in the medium.Of course, that’s conditioned on the the medium being stable over a long time.

    Physical damage to the media, however, will likely render the entire disk unreadable.  Rip a page out of a book and the rest of the book can be read.  Scratch a disc and you’ve likely killed the entire thing.

    • #5
  6. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    James Gawron:

    Skip,

    I’ve got to say that this is evidence of stupidity or lack of will or both. The price of backing up and the media and equipment required to do it keeps rocketing downward. Only the shortsighted that expect to take advantage of the digital age without dealing with the responsibilities could possibly let the things you are talking about happen.

    Then again when you see geniuses like Josh Earnest, Psaki, and Harf getting ahead you realize just how bad things can get.

    Regards,

    Jim

    It’s also a lack of time and knowledge, coupled with how many consumer-level backup systems are crap.  I’ve seen the internal backup systems of both Apple and MS actually take out the systems they were supposed to be protecting.  MS had 1 backup system for its servers up through 2k3, then changed to a completely different system in 2k8 that could not even read the backups created under the old system.  So if you had to retrieve some old data that had been archived offline, you either had to fire up an old server box first, or else find where MS had buried a compatibility fix.

    What we have, therefore, in the tech world is a revival of sorts of the old job of scrivener – a trade dedicated to making copies of records.  Even small companies need to have someone present tasked with keeping data constantly backed up and copied, then testing those backups to make sure they are still viable (a backup you haven’t tested is no backup at all).  This vigilance is costly, however, and seems unnecessary to most people until a lapse wipes them out.

    • #6
  7. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    James – Carnegie endowed some 2,500 libraries around the world, most of them in the Anglosphere.

    • #7
  8. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    EJHill:James – Carnegie endowed some 2,500 libraries around the world, most of them in the Anglosphere.

    EJ,

    Thanks, I expected that he did. Of course, the one in the photo has a lot of personal memories attached to it.

    Here’s another old friend. Boy, when you were six he could scare the pants off you.

    T Rex

    Cool, huh.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #8
  9. Ricochet Member
    Ricochet
    @AndrewMiller

    Interesting post.

    • #9
  10. Ricochet Contributor
    Ricochet
    @TitusTechera

    EJHill:James – Carnegie endowed some 2,500 libraries around the world, most of them in the Anglosphere.

    He also endowed a foundation for world peace whose charter included the note, give the money to other activities once the purpose has been achieved. Happily, the insanity was far less than the help he offered to his countrymen. Would that he were remembered.

    Thanks for writing about this. Hopefully, one day the LoC will change its ways & there will still be Americans around to benefit…

    • #10
  11. user_428379 Coolidge
    user_428379
    @AlSparks

    I guess it depends on whether the disks are spinning or not.  Most of the more sophisticated systems today are RAID arrays.  You can look it up, but in a nutshell, it provides real-time redundancy of disks, so if an individual disk fails, it can be replaced, and the data restored.

    If you’re backing up to media that isn’t being used, but simply stored after the backup is complete, it means there’s no real-time monitoring of the media.

    Unless there’s a system in place to check that media, then some data loss is inevitable.

    As for storing on tape, it’s much like the book which is missing a page.  You can have isolated damage, but still get the rest of the data.

    • #11
  12. Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr. Coolidge
    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr.
    @BartholomewXerxesOgilvieJr

    It is an interesting problem. Digital data is far more resilient than analog data, in the sense that it can remain forever pristine. A digital copy is a perfect copy and will not lose any quality over time.

    But digital media are more fragile, in the sense that they either work or they don’t. As a rule, you either have perfect fidelity or nothing.

    This is why it’s unwise ever to rely on a single copy, or even a single medium, for digital data you want to preserve. If you can divorce the data from the physical medium through redundancy, you can accomplish something like true permanence.

    I worry about my home videos and personal photos, because I only have a couple of copies of those on physical media that could fail. On the other hand, Gone With The Wind can never be lost unless civilization itself falls. There are millions of copies of it, in pristine high-definition format, in many places and on many storage media.

    • #12
  13. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr.:  On the other hand, Gone With The Wind can never be lost unless civilization itself falls. There are millions of copies of it, in pristine high-definition format, in many places and on many storage media.

    That’s not the worry. There are films like GWTW, The Wizard of Oz and more that remain commercially viable regardless of their age.

    On the other hand, The Library of Congress also holds 150,000 sixteen-inch lacquer disks from the NBC radio archives. The LOC is using public resources to digitize, catalogue and maintain something that essentially remains locked away from the vast majority of taxpayers. You may, with two weeks notice, travel to the DC area and schedule an appointment to listen.

    The Library, which is also the nation’s copyright police, will tell you that making the archive available is a legal minefield.

    The corporate rights holders and Washington have long had an incestuous relationship. For example the Motion Picture Association of America has always been a place for politicians to jump from government to lobbying. Their leadership has been comprised of Eric Johnston (Republican and former head of the US Chamber), Jack Valenti (Former aide to LBJ) and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). Why are all silent pictures not already in the public domain?

    • #13
  14. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    EJHill:

    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr.: On the other hand, Gone With The Wind can never be lost unless civilization itself falls. There are millions of copies of it, in pristine high-definition format, in many places and on many storage media.

    That’s not the worry. There are films like GWTW, The Wizard of Oz and more that remain commercially viable regardless of their age.

    On the other hand, The Library of Congress also holds 150,000 sixteen-inch lacquer disks from the NBC radio archives. The LOC is using public resources to digitize, catalogue and maintain something that essentially remains locked away from the vast majority of taxpayers. You may, with two weeks notice, travel to the DC area and schedule an appointment to listen.

    The Library, which is also the nation’s copyright police, will tell you that making the archive available is a legal minefield.

    The corporate rights holders and Washington have long had an incestuous relationship. For example the Motion Picture Association of America has always been a place for politicians to jump from government to lobbying. Their leadership has been comprised of Eric Johnston (Republican and former head of the US Chamber), Jack Valenti (Former aide to LBJ) and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). Why are all silent pictures not already in the public domain?

    EJ,

    On the other hand, The Library of Congress also holds 150,000 sixteen-inch lacquer disks from the NBC radio archives. The LOC is using public resources to digitize, catalogue and maintain something that essentially remains locked away from the vast majority of taxpayers. You may, with two weeks notice, travel to the DC area and schedule an appointment to listen.

    I think there is a conflict of interest here somewhere. If you want the government to accept the financial burden of maintaining the quality of your goods then I think you must accept a certain loss of control. Wouldn’t it make more sense to place the documents on-line and charge a small fee for access with the fee going to maintain the system. A computer system to do this is not exactly another space program and once set up becomes a self-sustaining operation. The material would still not be public domain as further use would still require negotiation with the copyright holder.

    Not perfect but maybe more like what we ought to do.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #14
  15. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    I’m not sure NBC is the culprit, but they’re complicit. A simple radio show would have a variety of legal hurdles. What are the legitimate interests of the heirs of writers, producers, directors and performers. How about the rights of composers, from those who wrote complete popular songs to those that wrote musical bridges?

    But as the years pass, how long is too long?

    • #15
  16. No Caesar Thatcher
    No Caesar
    @NoCaesar

    Great post.  I have a pretty extensive collection of various forms of data, which continues to grow.  I went from having one home server to two.  The second one does nothing but mirror the first.  Additionally, there is a cloud back up for catastrophic situations also mirroring the first server.

    Every time a relevant new technology comes out, I convert the applicable data files to it and then carrying on with both versions of data, etc.  On top of that every 3 years I move all data to a new set of HDDs.  Back in the 90s I was seen as pretty anal and cutting edge.  Now not out of the ordinary.  The low cost of HDD storage helps make this easier and faster each time I cycle.

    • #16
  17. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    No Caesar:Great post. I have a pretty extensive collection of various forms of data, which continues to grow. I went from having one home server to two. The second one does nothing but mirror the first. Additionally, there is a cloud back up for catastrophic situations also mirroring the first server.

    Every time a relevant new technology comes out, I convert the applicable data files to it and then carrying on with both versions of data, etc. On top of that every 3 years I move all data to a new set of HDDs. Back in the 90s I was seen as pretty anal and cutting edge. Now not out of the ordinary. The low cost of HDD storage helps make this easier and faster each time I cycle.

    Go Caesar,

    Right on. The price of HDD storage drops like a stone. USB 3.0 is screamingly fast. Makes it easy.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #17
  18. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    EJHill:I’m not sure NBC is the culprit, but they’re complicit. A simple radio show would have a variety of legal hurdles. What are the legitimate interests of the heirs of writers, producers, directors and performers. How about the rights of composers, from those who wrote complete popular songs to those that wrote musical bridges?

    But as the years pass, how long is too long?

    “Legitimate” interests of the heirs, or “legal” interests?

    I would submit they have no “legitimate” interest.  Under the copyright laws in place at the time these materials were produced, the material would have long since entered the public domain.

    And given that the material is essentially unavailable anyway (supposedly to protect their interest in compensation),  they aren’t going to be compensated in any event.

    Ironic, aint it?

    • #18
  19. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    anonymous:In 1998 I proposed a private, self-funding, and perpetual solution to the problem of preservation of digital data of all kinds, the Data Immortality Foundation. What makes it work is that the endowment funded by those who store data there permits migration of data to new media and technologies from the income generated from the endowment because the cost of storage continues to fall with technological progress. Once a truly permanent storage technology emerges (for example, molecular storage in a diamondoid carbon matrix, which should be stable over a time scale of billions of years), the preservation cost for existing data will fall to near zero.

    The foundation would take care of geographic and technological redundancy to protect data entrusted to it.

    This would not interact with copyright protection in any way. People who stored data with the foundation would be free to control access in any way they wished and/or encrypt the data and manage distribution of keys as they desired.

    John,

    Cool! This is what we should be doing. The digital age isn’t all upside grab the data and run. There is responsibility involved. Take our former Secretary of State. Totally irresponsibility and that’s being kind.

    We aren’t going to Mars so how about we act like adults with the data in the Information Age. Shouldn’t be so hard.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #19
  20. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    We’ve really got three discussions going here that intersect:

    1.  How do we preserve what we’re producing digitally?
    2. It it legitimate to include public money in this effort while excluding the public?
    3. When should the commercial become the cultural and lapse into the public domain?

    There’s a part of me that says I’d like knowing that the NBC archives are safe. But if the wider public can’t access it, does it really matter if they exist or not?

    • #20
  21. user_137118 Member
    user_137118
    @DeanMurphy

    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr.:It is an interesting problem. Digital data is far more resilient than analog data, in the sense that it can remain forever pristine. A digital copy is a perfect copy and will not lose any quality over time.

    Uncompressed digital media may remain forever pristine, but my music collection in MP3 and iTunes formats are degrading over time.  I find I am needing to purchase music that I once owned because the files have become corrupted.  (I suspect Apple is horking files when they get moved around.)  Some things, like the CD’s I ripped, are refreshable, but the songs I bought digitally 10 years ago are failing.

    • #21
  22. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    EJ & John,

    I think John has all of the answers on the technological end and we should listen. EJ is asking the other question.

    There’s a part of me that says I’d like knowing that the NBC archives are safe. But if the wider public can’t access it, does it really matter if they exist or not?

    Or, if Milton Berle gets hit by the make up guy and nobody is there to see it, does he get the laugh.

    This one for me is a balancing act. You always want to protect copyright. However, when something is being preserved at public expense and still being treated like a private cash cow for the corporate owner, I think the public has an interest that is being abused.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #22
  23. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    James Gawron:

    This one for me is a balancing act. You always want to protect copyright.

    “always”?

    I don’t.  At least not with the current perpetual version of copyright.  Bring copyright down to where it should be, in the 20-30 year range, and I’ll support extremely harsh penalties for even the most trivial violations.  (The death penalty is probably slightly too harsh, but I’d be willing to listen to someone make the case…).  But that’s assuming that works reach the public domain in a reasonable time period.

    The current law is ridiculous.

    • #23
  24. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    EJHill: In the days of analog television, a small crease or edge damage to video tape meant a momentary breakup or skew at the bottom of the picture. For digital tape, the exact same damage can result in unrecoverable loss.

    Digital data is extremely fault tolerant.

    While it is true that the damage would make it impossible to play back with a regular digital player, all of the data before, after – and sometimes in – the damaged area can be recovered by other means.  That means the worst case scenario would be a loss of sound or picture equal to that of a similarly damaged analog tape.

    That is, it’s still a problem for home users of such data, but for archivers it’s a manageable problem.

    The other advantage of digital data is that you can copy it repeatedly from one medium to another almost forever without changing it.

    Take magnetic media. Analog and digital data are both stored in waveforms on the medium.  Those waveforms change over time.  When an analog wave form changes, the sound or the picture changes.  Digital waveforms can change quite a bit, but as long as the ones are recognizable as ones and the zeros are recognizable as zeros, the sound and picture will remain unchanged.  And when digital data are copied from one medium to the other, the aged and distorted one and zeros are read from the source medium and fresh ones and zeros are written to the destination medium.  This results in the exact same sound and picture.

    It’s almost too good to be true.

    • #24
  25. Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr. Coolidge
    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr.
    @BartholomewXerxesOgilvieJr

    To me the problem isn’t so much copyright as the unintended consequence that some works simply become unavailable. There are many works that are simply impossible to obtain legally because they’re still under copyright protection, but for whatever reason the owners aren’t making them available. (It might be because of legal questions about ownership, or because there’s no money to be made, or simply because no one cares.)

    I don’t know what the solution is, but I wonder whether there might not be some model similar to trademark protection. If you don’t actively protect a trademark, you can lose it. Similarly, it seems to me that the purpose of copyright isn’t being served if a work isn’t actually available in any way. At some point, it should be liberated from copyright so that people who care can get hold of it, and maybe even republish it.

    • #25
  26. user_494971 Contributor
    user_494971
    @HankRhody

    James Gawron:

    No Caesar:Great post. I have a pretty extensive collection of various forms of data, which continues to grow. I went from having one home server to two. The second one does nothing but mirror the first. Additionally, there is a cloud back up for catastrophic situations also mirroring the first server.

    Every time a relevant new technology comes out, I convert the applicable data files to it and then carrying on with both versions of data, etc. On top of that every 3 years I move all data to a new set of HDDs. Back in the 90s I was seen as pretty anal and cutting edge. Now not out of the ordinary. The low cost of HDD storage helps make this easier and faster each time I cycle.

    Go Caesar,

    Right on. The price of HDD storage drops like a stone. USB 3.0 is screamingly fast. Makes it easy.

    Regards,

    Jim

    As a worker in a HDD factory, I’d like to thank both of you.

    • #26
  27. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Bring copyright down to where it should be, in the 20-30 year range, and I’ll support extremely harsh penalties for even the most trivial violations.

    I know a lady who insisted on the copyright to some radio shows she wrote and acted in. She wrote them. They were her work. She was still around. Why should someone else make money on her words and performances?

    Eventually she sold the rights to the show to a large distributor of old radio shows, which also put them back on the air. The money helps fund her twilight years. (She’s 98, and still a caution.) A nice ending for her, and anyone who wants access to the work can pony up a few bucks.

    • #27
  28. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    James Lileks: I know a lady who insisted on the copyright to some radio shows she wrote and acted in. She wrote them. They were her work. She was still around. Why should someone else make money on her words and performances?

    I dare say she’s an outlier at this point.

    I take it that these were local and not works for hire?

    • #28
  29. Ricochet Contributor
    Ricochet
    @TitusTechera

    EJHill: It it legitimate to include public money in this effort while excluding the public?

    Sure, it might be. Some things are simply worth keeping around without the hassle of helping the public, because you do not know when it futurity they might be important. People who do not believe in progress with respect to the things so protected, I suppose, would just say, yeah, that’s right. But even some who do might want to be in a position to verify progress by comparing what is with what was, which would require protection. The entire point of ding this with public monies is that people might not bother to do & it cannot be left to what is called the market.

    But, of course, if the public is willing to take care of the hassle, then there is no reason why the gov’t should not be offering up the hoard to anyone. It’s no loss to them or futurity…

    When should the commercial become the cultural and lapse into the public domain?

    Sooner rather than later. People who do not want the people prying things from their–sometimes, cold, dead–hands will just have to learn not to publish in the first place. I wonder if Americans would not support far shorter copyrights for what are called cultural artifacts. Do you have a great book or song selling? You get 20 years of exclusive rights & then everyone else is free to make money out of it, too. But this is also a practical problem–like with LoC–if Americans just do not care, it does not matter that things could improve.

    • #29
  30. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    James Lileks:

    Bring copyright down to where it should be, in the 20-30 year range, and I’ll support extremely harsh penalties for even the most trivial violations.

    I know a lady who insisted on the copyright to some radio shows she wrote and acted in. She wrote them. They were her work. She was still around. Why should someone else make money on her words and performances?

    Patents on inventions don’t last for life, why should copyright?

    “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

    The near-perpetual copyright we currently have is not a “limited” time.

    • #30
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