Study: Audio recordings of US history fading fast

[Reading Bug]

Study: Audio recordings of US history fading fast
By BRETT ZONGKER, Associated Press Writer

Quote:

WASHINGTON – New digital recordings of events in U.S. history and early radio shows are at risk of being lost much faster than older ones on tape and many are already gone, according to a study on sound released Wednesday.

Even recent history - such as recordings from 9/11 or the 2008 election - is at risk because digital sound files can be corrupted, and widely used CD-R discs only last three to five years before files start to fade, said study co-author Sam Brylawski.

"I think we're assuming that if it's on the Web it's going to be there forever," he said. "That's one of the biggest challenges."

The first comprehensive study of the preservation of sound recordings in the U.S. being released by the Library of Congress also found many historical recordings already have been lost or can't be accessed by the public. That includes most of radio's first decade from 1925 to 1935.

Shows by singers Duke Ellington and Bing Crosby, as well as the earliest sports broadcasts, are already gone. There was little financial incentive for such broadcasters as CBS to save early sound files, Brylawski said.

Digital files are a blessing and a curse. Sounds can be easily recorded and transferred and the files require less and less space. But the problem, Brylawski said, is they must be constantly maintained and backed up by audio experts as technology changes. That requires active preservation, rather than simply placing files on a shelf, he said.

The study co-authored by Rob Bamberger was mandated by Congress in a 2000 preservation law.

Those old analog formats that remain are more physically stable and can survive about 150 years longer than contemporary digital recordings, the study warns. Still, the rapid change in technology to play back the recordings can make them obsolete.

Recordings saved by historical societies and family oral histories also are at risk, Brylawski said.

"Those audio cassettes are just time bombs," Brylawski said. "They're just not going to be playable."

There are few if any programs to train professional audio archivists, the study found. No universities currently offer degrees in audio preservation, though several offer related courses.

A hodgepodge of 20th century state anti-piracy laws also has kept most sound files out of the public domain before U.S. copyright law was extended to sound recordings in 1972. The study found only 14 percent of commercially released recordings are available from rights holders. That limits how much preservation can be accomplished, Brylawski said.

The study calls for changes in the law to help preservation. As it stands now, Brylawski said, copyright restrictions would make most audio preservation initiatives illegal, the authors wrote.

Courtesy of Yahoo! News

[admin]

Oh great, another crap story spouting myth/BS that isn't backed up by any research, yet will make enough noise that people will believe it.
Good grief. Let's pick this apart...

>> POST UPDATE:
>> Further posts below this one, as you scroll down the page, reveal it to probably be a bad re-interpretation of a press release.
>> Links to the actual LOC study are available, too.

Quote:

The first comprehensive study of the preservation of sound recordings in the U.S. being released by the Library of Congress also found many historical recordings already have been lost or can't be accessed by the public. That includes most of radio's first decade from 1925 to 1935. Shows by singers Duke Ellington and Bing Crosby, as well as the earliest sports broadcasts, are already gone. There was little financial incentive for such broadcasters as CBS to save early sound files, Brylawski said.

This is mostly because the audio was never recorded, not because it was "lost" from media aging. In some cases, master tapes/reels were simply re-used, due to costs. The same thing happened with cels used in early animation, as well as kinescopes from early live TV broadcasts. Archiving had no value in those days. Performances were treated like theatre, something that is done once and then it's over.

This person has grossly used this example out of context.

Quote:

Those old analog formats that remain are more physically stable and can survive about 150 years longer than contemporary digital recordings, the study warns. Still, the rapid change in technology to play back the recordings can make them obsolete.

Horsepuckey.
Old analog formats, such as tape, are not going to survive 150 years. That's going to be a challenge even for film, as George Lucas will surely attest!

Quote:

"Those audio cassettes are just time bombs," Brylawski said. "They're just not going to be playable."

True, but not true. I'm currently making my way through recordings from the early 1970s, and the tapes are fine. The biggest issue on tapes that old is oxide shedding (moisture damage) and being "eaten" by a player. That last one, of course, has always been a problem with tapes, regardless of age -- it's the primary drawback of tape as it is forced to mechanically make contact with playback heads, be it video, audio or data tapes. It's why DV tape has become obsolete, too, even if it was digital data being recorded to the tape.

Quote:

Even recent history - such as recordings from 9/11 or the 2008 election - is at risk because digital sound files can be corrupted, and widely used CD-R discs only last three to five years before files start to fade, said study co-author Sam Brylawski.

The qualifier "widely used" is probably a reference to the discs made by Ritek and CMC, common cheap often-crappy consumer media, however it's still grossly exaggerated.

The last time somebody gave out a stupid timeframe of "two to five years", the story was debunked as the baseless unresearched and unreliable crap it was. This one will be no different.

Anybody who claims discs die in 3-5 years either has a vested interest in alternative technology (as was the case with the magnetic media IBM researcher from that story 5 years ago), or the person has simply never burned and tested CD-R over a long period of time.

For example, I just removed about 50 CD-R from my car, discs that have lived in my car since the mid 1990s, because I just wasn't listening to them anymore. This was a far-from-ideal environment for those discs, with a majority of the years having been in Texas heat and moisture. In more recent years, the media have sat in sub-freezing nighttime temps, only to be rapidly re-heated when the sun came back out in the early morning. I've abused the heck out of those discs. Yet they are both playing and testing well within tolerances. Some of those are even early-generation AZO media, which will decay more rapidly than more modern AZO or other dye types.


The only truth from this article was found at the end of it:

Quote:

There are few if any programs to train professional audio archivists, the study found. No universities currently offer degrees in audio preservation, though several offer related courses.

I think a degree would be silly. But there are definitely not enough courses in archiving, preserving, restoring and forensic recovery of media, be it print, audio or video. I wish that such things would be required parts of certain degree plans, be it journalism degrees (broadcasting, especially!), history or anthropology. It's a good skill to have in those fields.

Quote:

A hodgepodge of 20th century state anti-piracy laws also has kept most sound files out of the public domain before U.S. copyright law was extended to sound recordings in 1972. The study found only 14 percent of commercially released recordings are available from rights holders. That limits how much preservation can be accomplished, Brylawski said. The study calls for changes in the law to help preservation. As it stands now, Brylawski said, copyright restrictions would make most audio preservation initiatives illegal, the authors wrote.

Indeed! These society-unfriendly laws have put all power in the hands of so-called "rights holders" (corporations that have existed generations after the artists have died) and prevents the people -- for whom all this art was made -- from accessing it. And in turn, allowed it to die away in poorly maintained vaults and archives. Even big companies like WB and Disney should be ashamed of themselves, having horded large amounts of non-public media, with many disasters (fires, earthquakes, floods) having destroyed collections through the years. Many things have been lost. In some cases, it wasn't natural disaster, but gross negligence that studios allowed to happen.

The spirit of copyright law was for artists to reap profit from their work, during their lifetime. I think a decade is plenty of time to reap those profits. You don't need to control for 90+ years, as can happen now. That's a gross distortion and violation of the original spirit of laws that can be traced back to the 1700s (arguably earlier, but let's stick to the USA). Characters are protected by trademarks forever, so copyright isn't needed as an extra defacto trademark protection.


Also...

What amazes me here is the quoted person, Sam Brylawski, was employed by the Library of Congress (LOC), as a cataloger of recordings. He also "prioritized" older recordings for digital transition. That tells me two things: (1) he didn't convert anything himself, and likely has limited knowledge of the digital process and media in use, and (2) he was an integral part of a team that actively converted audio from what he described as long-lasting analog media to quickly-dying digital media. Am I the only one who realizes this article is contrary to his job, and therefore makes no sense.
His bio is here: http://www.nedcc.org/education/confe...d2008/bios.php.

Glad he's not in charge of the LOC, otherwise he may trying to "archive" CD onto wax Edison cones.

I just don't get this.

Much like that last 3-5 years CD/DVD article, much of the blame for the misinformation may lie with the article author, Brett Zongker, and not the study or quoted person. This whole thing may have been used out of context. Last time, the author was a cell phone reviewer who was unqualified to write about blank media at that level. Zongker is described as an "(AP) reporter covering arts, culture, entertainment, tourism, nonprofits and Washington." How the hell does this person qualify to write about the technical aspects of optical media? Writing about music isn't the same as writing about the technology that powers music distribution. His bio is at http://muckrack.com/DCArtBeat and I think he looks like some young kid with an attitude.

As a part-time reporter myself, I won't write about something when I don't fully comprehend the topic yet. If I was interviewing somebody on cars, for example, I could be told something that a mechanic would immediately know is BS. But I don't know cars, so I'd be dumb enough to include the incorrect factoid in my piece. Had I been interviewing this person, I would NEVER have simple taken notes that CD-R have a 3-5 year lifespan and moved on. HELL NO! I'd have insisted for much deeper information to verify this wild claim.

Then again, it appears the article was written from a report, and an interview may have never actually happened. So you have somebody reading something they barely comprehend, and writing something that doesn't make any sense? That makes sense.

These things really just give me a headache.

What's worse is this anti-CD (and therefore defacto anti-DVD) gibberish may cause people to falsely start storing more content on hard drives, which do actually have a 3-5 year life span. And that, unlike the phantom information used for the CD-R claim, is well-document research performed by several respected groups and companies. Google, for example, has posted their findings on this topic. OnTrack and some others have materials, as well, pertaining to hard drive lifespans being in the half-decade range.

Above all else, storage conditions dictate lifespan and condition, not age or medium.

These half-assed articles, a mixture of info that is true and not true, do nobody any favors.

[Winsordawson]

So are well-kept DVDs from a good manufacturer still the best way to go? I have read on some forums that solid state drives are recommended for archiving, but this is questionable since flash drives are known to lose data if is not refreshed occasionally.

Or what about linear tape-open drives? Do they last longer than DVDs, assuming they are recorded to only a couple of times and then put into storage?

[Steve(MS)]

Sad truth is most of our so called authorities in most any given field (not to mention politics) don't know what they are doing or what they are talking about.
Maybe they only used Memorex or something even cheaper to transfer but even in that case more than likely they would last longer than described.
Scare-mongering at its best.

[admin]

I'll address your two posts in the near future. Right now I'm reading various PDFs -- the actual study. Indeed, the article written by AP is scare-mongering. A number of facts were used by the article's author out of context from the original study, to support some kind of idiotic anti-digital/anti-CD rant that was clearly not present in the study.

For example, the idea that analog audio will outlast digital audio by 150 years is based off a preservation issue, where 21st century digital media simply is not being archived as carefully as analog media had been in the 20th century. I would speculate that it has to do with psychology, where people don't grasp the fact that when a website dies, the information is gone. When a book goes out of print, I can still find a copy. Same applies to audio and video. As an example, Youtube has quite a few funny home videos. But unless those are archived, America's Funniest Home Videos (the studio TV series) will outlast Youtube content and probably still be available in 50+ years.

Now, the article writer used this factoid as evidence against digital media, when that was NEVER the claim of the study. What a bastard.

It will probably be a few weeks before I'm done.

[admin]

Also, here's part the original LOC press release:

Quote:

Although public institutions, libraries and archives hold an estimated 46 million recordings, the study finds that major areas of America’s recorded sound heritage have already deteriorated or remain inaccessible to the public. Only an estimated 14 percent of pre-1965 commercially released recordings are currently available from rights-holders. Of music released in the United States in the 1930s, only about 10 percent of it can now be readily accessed by the public.

The study, written by Rob Bamberger and Sam Brylawski, points out "the lack of conformity between federal and state laws, which has adversely affected the survival of pre-1972 sound recording. One of the major conclusions in the report is that the advent of digital technologies and distribution platforms has made inseparable the issues surrounding both the preservation of sound recordings and access to them."

Another surprise: The authors say that "older recordings are likely to survive more than 100 years longer than contemporary recordings made using digital technologies."

Newer materials such as born-digital audio are at greater risk of loss than older recordings, such as 78-rpm discs; that there is a lack of a comprehensive program to preserve born-digital audio; and that open-reel preservation tapes made in the 1970s and 1980s are deteriorating faster than older tape recordings.

Quote:

The Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation has already begun initiatives to solve some of the problems identified during preparation of the study. For example, the Recorded Sound Section of the Packard Campus has obtained a license to stream acoustical recordings controlled by the Sony Music Entertainment for the Library of Congress National Jukebox, which will debut later in 2010.

The Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation is a state-of-the-art facility funded as a gift to the nation by the Packard Humanities Institute. The Packard Campus is the site where the nation’s library acquires, preserves and provides access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of motion pictures, television programs, radio broadcasts and sound recordings www.loc.gov/avconservation

The Packard Campus is home to more than six million collection items, including nearly three million sound recordings. It provides staff support for the Library of Congress National Film Preservation Board, the National Recording Preservation Board, and the National Registries for film and recorded sound.

As somebody who has spent many years on both sides of the equation -- writing press releases for media, as well as re-writing releases for news stories -- it's obvious that the AP writer simply (and quite badly) regurgitated the LOC release and butchered it in the process. Amateur.

And then here's the original study: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub148/pub148.pdf

I'm having issues with some of the material. There are times when media is discussed in vague opinionated generalities, and completely lacks any scientific backing. For example, sound/audio engineers who think CD is a terrible format. No further information is really given, which I find appalling. I have the opinion that many sound engineers have allowed their psychology to cloud their judgments, as many of them claim to be able to "hear" things that are not actually there. That's always been a popular bias against CD, that it "sounds different". Well, that's mostly a byproduct of how CD-Audio is cooked as compared to other formats (levels off the scale, etc), and not due to the medium itself. Audio engineers should know this, but I don't want to give anybody too much credit these days.

Notice that much of the study focuses on storage and handling, too -- which is the true issue of archiving.

I have a feeling this study will be like many food studies. In other words, nothing is safe. All options are bad. And somebody got paid big grant bucks to tell us the we should be scared. Yay.

[admin]

The Hollywood Reporter did not goof it up. This is a very good interpretation of what the study says:

Quote:

A groundbreaking study to be released Wednesday by the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board finds that America's musical legacy is in jeopardy.

Although public institutions, libraries and archives hold an estimated 46 million recordings, the study says major areas of the nation's recorded sound heritage have deteriorated or remain inaccessible. Only an estimated 14% of commercially released recordings before 1965 are available from rightsholders.

Of music released in the U.S. during the 1930s, only about 10% can be readily accessed by the public.

"Sound recordings have existed as one of the most salient features of America's cultural landscape for more than 130 years," Librarian of Congress James Billington said. "As a nation, we have good reason to be proud of our historical record of creativity in the sound-recording arts and sciences.

"However, our collective energy in creating and consuming sound recordings in all genres has not been matched by an equal level of interest, over the same period of time, in preserving them for posterity."

Digital technology alone will not ensure the preservation and survival of the nation's sound history, the study notes. In fact, the authors conclude that older recordings are likely to survive 150 years longer than contemporary recordings made using digital technologies.

The study, the first on a national level to examine the state of America's sound-recording preservation, also reports that open-reel preservation tapes made in the '70s and '80s are deteriorating faster than older tape recordings.

Mandated by Congress under the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the study urges a coordinated effort by stakeholders to address the scope of the problem and calls for preservation education.

from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...f0120ecd1a8437

So there ARE still quality reporters out there. Sadly, this much better piece will be overshadowed by the crap AP version. There's just no justice sometimes. Ironic that a celebrity magazine full of usually-fluff news gets it right, while a diligent news source like AP gets it wrong.

[kpmedia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve(MS)

Sad truth is most of our so called authorities in most any given field (not to mention politics) don't know what they are doing or what they are talking about. Maybe they only used Memorex or something even cheaper to transfer but even in that case more than likely they would last longer than described. Scare-mongering at its best.

During preliminary reading, something I noticed right away was a quote from a so-called archivist where it was stated that gold discs are archival grade discs. WHAT!?

Well, if they're using inferior gold discs, then it's really no wonder they've run into issues. Mitsui (now MAM-A) is/was the only company that claims gold is archival. This is a topic for both a guide and an editorial that going to be published here in the near future, so I won't go into it much more. In short, both gold and the dyes typically used on gold discs are harder on the lasers, and often result in degraded initial burns. As time goes by, multiple factor contribute to a situation where the disc is harder to read than a disc made with cheaper materials. This should not be something that is unknown to archivists, but apparently that is the case.

They may as well have used Memorex or office store branded blanks.

[kpmedia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winsordawson

So are well-kept DVDs from a good manufacturer still the best way to go?

Absolutely. It's all in the media guides: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/guides/media

Quote:

I have read on some forums that solid state drives are recommended for archiving, but this is questionable since flash drives are known to lose data if is not refreshed occasionally.

The advice you saw on those forums was ridiculous, for the reason you state. More than likely, you were reading something from some unqualified twit. I'd wager it was some video gaming kid or young student that "archives" school papers and junk to a flash drive. Professional photographers, on the other hand, are quite well versed in the pros/cons of solid-sate media, as many of us have been shooting digital for more than a decade now.

Quote:

Or what about linear tape-open drives? Do they last longer than DVDs, assuming they are recorded to only a couple of times and then put into storage?

Not really. Tape is tape. It's a analog medium that requires mechanical contact with devices to be read/written. This issue alone makes it more susceptible to usage damage than media that is read by a laser. Tapes should never be re-used for archival needs. Some tapes are not even fit enough quality as an archive when use fresh and new.

It's really nice to see the forum members here have not been shaken by this silly AP news hackjob story and are instead relying on the factual information we've long presented here. Others will undoubtedly not be so wise.

[admin]

I'm attaching the study PDF here.

I really need to buy myself an iPad to read stuff like this away from the desk.
"Dear Santa Claus, this year I would like ...."

[Reading Bug]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kpmedia

It's really nice to see the forum members here have not been shaken by this silly AP news hackjob story and are instead relying on the factual information we've long presented here. Others will undoubtedly not be so wise.

Indeed. This kind of news story provides the opportunity to correct/confirm/reconfirm the actual facts, which is precisely why I posted it. I just hope Admin can sleep tonight!

Admin, could you link to the original LOC press release you quote from? Thanks!

[NJRoadfan]

Regarding CD-R lifespan. I have "Gold" CD-Rs with the green dye dating back to 1996-97 (they cost $7-8 a piece!). Guess what, they all read fine.

tdk.jpg

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http://gfx.cdmediaworld.com/c/tdk.jpg
http://gfx.cdmediaworld.com/c/tdk_top.jpg

Earliest CD-R I have with a Phillips that came with a friend's Phillips CDD2000 2X CD-R drive.

tdk_top.jpg

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I have a batch of cheap silver discs from 2001 (Ritek likely) that have their fair share of issues. the biggest problem is the top silver layer flaking off. Thankfully I have stored nothing important on them.

I am purposely hoarding a batch of "Made in the USA" in-house produced TDK CD-Rs I bought back in 2000, simply because its awesome media. Looks like this:

philips.jpg
http://gfx.cdmediaworld.com/c/tdk_cd-r74.gif

After 2000, they started selling re-branded Ritek media.

Oh, and I have an early Taiyo-Yuden That's CDR too, circa 1999. Came with my Plextor PX-W4220T CD-RW drive. Reads fine.

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[Steve(MS)]

Concerning audio cassette tapes, like Admin, I had some Maxell
high bias recordings from LPs made back in the 80's that stayed in my various vehicles over the decades.
Some of them I recently transferred to CD and they were in fairly good shape, of course, some of them were in better shape than others and there were a few dropouts on some of them but I was glad to get them copied because they are OOP.

[admin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reading Bug

Admin, could you link to the original LOC press release you quote from? Thanks!

It wasn't available on their site right away. But it's there now, at http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/10-194.html

Quote:

September 29, 2010
Library Releases Final Study Showing Dire State of Sound Recording Preservation and Access
Study to Inform a Library of Congress National Plan to Protect Audio Heritage

Digital technology alone will not ensure the preservation and survival of the nation’s sound history. That is one of the findings in a major study released today by the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB) detailing the state of sound-recording preservation and access. The study was mandated by the U.S. Congress under the "National Recording Preservation Act of 2000" (P.L. 106-174) and is the first comprehensive study on a national level that examines the state of America’s sound-recording preservation ever conducted in the United States.

Titled "The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States: A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age," the study outlines the interlocking issues that now threaten the long-term survival of America’s sound-recording history. It also identifies the public and private policy issues that strongly bear on whether the nation's most culturally and historically important sound recordings will be preserved for future generations.

Although public institutions, libraries and archives hold an estimated 46 million recordings, the study finds that major areas of America’s recorded sound heritage have already deteriorated or remain inaccessible to the public. Only an estimated 14 percent of pre-1965 commercially released recordings are currently available from rights-holders. Of music released in the United States in the 1930s, only about 10 percent of it can now be readily accessed by the public.

In his introduction to the study, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington noted: "Sound recordings have existed as one of the most salient features of America’s cultural landscape for more than 130 years. As a nation, we have good reason to be proud of our historical record of creativity in the sound-recording arts and sciences. However, our collective energy in creating and consuming sound recordings in all genres has not been matched by an equal level of interest, over the same period of time, in preserving them for posterity."

Authored by Rob Bamberger and Sam Brylawski under the auspices of NRPB, the study points out the lack of conformity between federal and state laws, which has adversely affected the survival of pre-1972 sound recording. One of the major conclusions in the report is that the advent of digital technologies and distribution platforms has made inseparable the issues surrounding both the preservation of sound recordings and access to them.

The authors also conclude that analog recordings made more than 100 years ago are likelier to survive than digital recordings made today. In addition, the report warns that there must be a coordinated effort by the various stakeholders to address the scope of the problem, the complexity of the technical landscape, the need for preservation education and the copyright conundrum.

Finally, the report notes that newer materials such as born-digital audio are at greater risk of loss than older recordings, such as 78-rpm discs; that there is a lack of a comprehensive program to preserve born-digital audio; and that open-reel preservation tapes made in the 1970s and 1980s are deteriorating faster than older tape recordings. For more findings from the report, review the appendix at www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/PR10-194SRstudyAppendixwithkeyfindings.pdf and the introduction/executive summary at www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/CLIRpub148Intro.pdf.

"The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States: A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age" is available for purchase and as a free download at www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub148abst.html. Information for this study was gathered through interviews, public hearings and written submissions. NRPB previously commissioned five ancillary studies in support of this final report, which will lay the groundwork for the National Recording Preservation Plan, to be developed and published later this year.

The Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation has already begun initiatives to solve some of the problems identified during preparation of the study. For example, the Recorded Sound Section of the Packard Campus has obtained a license to stream acoustical recordings controlled by the Sony Music Entertainment for the Library of Congress National Jukebox, which will debut later in 2010.

The Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation is a state-of-the-art facility funded as a gift to the nation by the Packard Humanities Institute. The Packard Campus is the site where the nation’s library acquires, preserves and provides access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of motion pictures, television programs, radio broadcasts and sound recordings (www.loc.gov/avconservation/). The Packard Campus is home to more than six million collection items, including nearly three million sound recordings. It provides staff support for the Library of Congress National Film Preservation Board, the National Recording Preservation Board, and the National Registries for film and recorded sound.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov and via interactive exhibitions on a personalized website at myLOC.gov.

# # #

PR 10-194
09/29/10
ISSN 0731-3527

The only place that the ridiculous anti-CD/anti-digital ranting occurs is in the Associated Press article. It's not something you'll find from LOC release or the study itself (from what I've had time to read so far). It's not in other better-written articles either. I've come to the conclusion that the guy who wrote it simply didn't know what he was writing about, which is unfortunate for all who read it.

The biggest mistake of the study was failure to recognize not all media are made equal. (Again, based on what I've had time to read so far.) By lumping cheap Princo CD/DVD and Taiyo Yuden CD/DVD into the same "disc" category is a disservice to archivists who may be reading this for reassessing their own archive methods.