Let’s start with some history.
In 1924, the horror film Nosferatu, based off the story Dracula by Bram Stoker, was ordered by the German court to have every known copy destroyed due to not being cleared with Stoker’s wife and estate owner, Florence Stoker. Initially, they were fairly successful, being able to track down every print and burn, melt, saw them in half- until one surfaced in the United States. It’s not entirely known how it found its way the United States. But, since this rogue reel of nitrate couldn’t be destroyed due to being under another country’s laws, Nosferatu managed to survive. Prints were made again and again from this soul living survivor, and since then Nosferatu is recognized as one of the great grandfather’s of horror.
That print that found its way to the United States shouldn’t have existed. It was probably a copy that found it's way outside of the studio’s documentation by a pirate. The movie shouldn’t exist, Stoker’s wife hated that it found a way to survive, and yet here we are. At the irritation and disapproval of the owner of the story, a gem of early filmography continues to exist.
This kind of thing continued to happen well into the 1980s. By that time, there were entire communities centered around buying and trading film prints that managed to find their way outside cinemas and studios. This underground trade was greatly communicated through The Big Reel, a magazine for traders and vendors to advertise their collections and discuss the hobby. This, of course, caught the attention of the FBI and soon many collectors were in remarkable legal trouble for selling pirated films or simply prints that had escaped the studio’s possession. However, because of these film collectors, many movies continue to exist. This is just one example of many others where the average collector has the ability to save something from being wiped from existence. Since the beginning, proper preservation and the law have always been at odds due to copyright restrictions and preservationist bias. It is not possible to be a layman to share material for the sake of preservation without also breaking the law (unless said material has lapsed into the public domain, which in itself is complicated.)
Flash forward to the 21st century and people are connected by the internet. At a rapid pace people are talking to each other about what they remember watching and trying to figure out where they can watch it again. Soon, movies that have never been digitized and are nearly impossible to find begin being shared online. B-movies exclusively released on VHS, songs that only saw one broadcast on the radio, cartoons canceled after one episode, the internet begins a gigantic boom in layman’s preservation. This blurs into the act of piracy, people downloading songs or movies that are easily available legally for a price, yet this too can be argued as preservation. Just as RKO accidentally melted the negatives for Citizen Kane for scrap silver in the war effort, the American public can not fully trust a film’s owner to be responsible for it.
This leaves preserving copyrighted material up to us, the layman’s, the non-academics. When working with an archive you are restricted to what is legal, when you are a layman you have the ability to “break” the law because in reality nobody is enforcing it. Sharing a movie that the studio no longer cares for and enforces on YouTube is illegal, however it’s almost certain that no consequences come from it.
Something that’s status of existence is uncertain is considered lost media. In this case, media is either an image (this includes moving pictures), audio, or text (this includes programming.) Originally, this definition was strict to only things that nobody knows where a copy is. A prime example are silent films, over three quarters of which are missing with no known copies to exist. However, this means the preservationist’s effort is nearly a fool’s errand. One can travel the globe for a lost film and never find it, often having no clues in the next place to go.
This takes us to a looser, more modern definition of what lost media is, and that is media that is not easily available legally or illegally. In this case “easily” means being able to take a short moment to find a copy of it digitally online or physically through a store. There is debate on this definition, however, this is what is generally accepted throughout communities that specialize in the topic.
Communities specifically based around lost media have been around for a long time, in this case we’ll specifically be talking about communities that exclusively function on the internet. Early examples of this would be baby boomers, such as Ira Gallen (TVDays) and Rick Klein (FuzzyMemories.tv), showcasing their collections of broadcast recordings and 16mm commercial prints online. Over their lifespans they have accumulated thousands of tapes and films with material that is not accessible in any archive or any digital platform outside of their own. These collectors, which there are many of, have preservation at heart, but also greed. This is when we run into watermarking. Many collectors who transfer physical recordings feel the need to watermark their transfers before sharing them online to defer others for stealing it and claiming credit. They fail to understand, however, that in the possibility that their collection is taken away from them or their original transfers are lost in some way, their watermarked copies may be the last ones left. This is a great risk in getting recognition, and a senseless one. A preservationist’s job is often thankless and penniless when doing it alone, one shouldn’t have to plaster their name on what they’re saving to continue doing it, at that point it becomes pointless. Preserving the past should be done for your interest and your generosity first. Credit and reputation always comes second. Unfortunately, many of these older preservationists are stubborn and are caught in their old ways, which have since been proven to be ineffective and a nuisance to the new generation of researchers.
Around the same time as these collectors popped up on the net, so did what many consider “hoarders.” What defines a hoarder, in this context, is someone that owns something that is not available elsewhere and refuses to share it due to their own perception in what it is “worth” or what “should” be done with it. Many of these owners believe that what they own could be sold for a very high amount, so preserving it for others would lower that value. They are focused on money rather than historical documentation. In a way, this is understandable, but what they fail to understand is often what they have is something that very few people have the funds and interest to buy. It is not uncommon for these things to disappear before anyone has the chance to buy them. And even when they are bought, the buyer is often not identified and that item is gone forever. This is where greed gets to the point of destroying history.
There are other “hoarders” that believe that if they digitize whatever it is themselves and keep it, that’s good enough. This, again, is incorrect and is quite similar to what many companies believe. Just because it has been preserved and exists in many copies, does not mean those copies will exist forever. Without sharing them, you risk the possibility in your backup becoming lost over time, and due to not sharing a copy and the original further degrading, the risk of that item being destroyed permanently is considerable. The remaining assets to the unfinished feature film Strawberry Fields currently resides in the basement of a man in his 70s who’s only interest is selling them of 100k or the impossible chance that a studio comes by and finishes the film. Delusion stands in the way of preserving and disseminating art. The only way for something to have a chance at existing forever is for it to be shared as often as possible.
There are many that believe everything must be saved. This is a very dangerous idea. The ability to destroy and forget should be taken seriously and used. We do not have enough space to save everything, only the things we care about. One could argue that everything but have someone to care for it, but we should leave that thing’s existence up to its caretaker.
Today, many communities that cover lost media suffer from this mentality. There are many communities that focus on bumpers shown on television that are identical to each other, broadcasts of television shows that are already available in many different formats, logos for VHS tapes that are so slightly different from each other that the differences are negligible. Many of these people are legitimately interested in these things, and that’s not a bad thing. However, there are just as many people that have no interest in the content but rather just saving something that is “lost.” Even the staff of the Internet Archive have fallen into this trap. Because of this, the platform is polluted with material that only the uploaders have use for in a fleeting moment. Material staff themselves support being on their own website becomes the source of its own destruction, not understanding by preserving everything with such a large spotlight that they put themselves in the crosshairs of the law.
That has to stop.
Not only do these particular people inflate servers with material neither they or hardly anyone else cares about, but they often go about doing it in the worst ways by sharing it senselessly without context and just polluting platforms that serve to present properly presented material. If someone is searching for something, they should be searching for it because they are legitimately interested in what it is and actively want to see it, not because of its status as a lost item, but because of what it holds.
When searching for something, the searcher should educate themselves as much as they can on the item. Who made it, why, where, when, and most importantly how easy it would be to find. Some things are quite literally impossible to find for the average person. That is no fault of their own, but much of the time these things only exist on tapes that are sitting in a thrift store somewhere unlabeled. It’s a needle in the world’s largest haystack. But, there are also many things that can be found easily, and with that the searcher should keep an open mind, level head, and know what it takes. Copyright law is dangerous and when participating in something like this it helps greatly to be familiar with it. When contacting someone who may own the material, tell them why you want it, not because you want to save it from oblivion but because you’re actually interested in it. Few people actually care about saving whatever they have, especially when they themselves created it. Artists throw their own art away because to them they can make more. It helps when someone comes to them saying they actually like their art, not that they want to save it from the trash heap because it has some sort of superficial value due to its “lost” status.
All of this amounts to a fantastic idea that thousands of people can search for things that have been lost for years because they are interested in them. They can work together, learn what they have to do, and go after it. Even if they never find what they are looking for, their research helps greatly for the next person who wants to take on the task.
Yet, unfortunately, much of this idea has been squandered.
The concept of lost media, in a vacuum, is quite simple. However, when you ask the average netizen about “lost media” they immediately have a very specific picture in their head. This picture is of a community, which is only a small sliver of a much larger picture, making a fool of itself. People online asking for a show they saw as a child but have no name for, this is not what “lost media” is, that is just something you can’t remember the name of. Yet, the two are often confused by the general public. Entire reputations have been built on searching for things other people want and turning these things into novelties and commodities for their own gain without actually paying attention to what it is and why they care. Lost media becomes defined by its reputation of being lost, and when that happens it abstracts it into a knick-knack.
The solution to this is not to keep yelling at each other but to try and understand why we do these things and why we want whatever it is. People expect others to find what they want because they asked nicely, not understanding that in this community they are the captain of their own search. People ask for a show they don’t remember the name of not realizing that that is a question that goes to a completely different community. If we stop reducing “lost media” to a gimmick and actually understand that we have the power to preserve things that are ignored by their owners and take it seriously, we get a lot more things done a lot easier.