from the I-wonder-if-they-ever-get-a-DMCA-takedown-notice? dept.
The Library of Congress has been collecting analog recordings of sound and moving images since the late 1800s: Early film reels from inventor Thomas Edison's lab of the 1890s. Audio recordings of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech. The original 35 mm film stock of "Star Wars." These national treasures are among the millions of cultural artifacts being stored in secure vaults in the Library of Congress' National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, some 90 minutes southwest of Washington. The center occupies the Packard Campus, a former bunker for storing federal currency, and measures an amazing 415,000 square feet. Its artifacts are housed in dozens of temperature-controlled vaults and on 90 miles of storage shelves.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday June 27 2014, @09:03PM
I wonder if they have "How Much is that Doggie in the Window" [youtube.com] in there somewhere?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday June 27 2014, @09:19PM
Lets hope the digitize it all and preserve both formats.
Sitting in a vault that no one can access does no one any good.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @09:54PM
"Lets hope the digitize it all"
They are working on it.
It will be one of the only places in the US you can view/listen to it though.
Unfortunately, it is also being completely swamped by incoming digital content
from the media companies since they figured out that they can get the government
to their archiving work for them.
(Score: 4, Informative) by present_arms on Friday June 27 2014, @09:52PM
That the difference between the UK and USA is that the Americans think 100 Years is a long time, and us Brits think 100 miles is a long way. Oh i agree with the poster above about it not being lock away in a vault somewhere
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
(Score: 3, Informative) by lhsi on Friday June 27 2014, @09:57PM
Is everything being just stored for looking at, or is anything making up a sort of 'living' history? Something that people can interact with and experience.
There are businesses in England that were formed before the USA was an independent nation (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25711108) still running; I think it would be a shame if everything from history was just put into a warehouse to be occasionaly looked at.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @10:08PM
And yet, moon landing originals were lost...
(Score: 2) by khallow on Friday June 27 2014, @10:45PM
I suppose if we never lost cultural history, then there'd be no reason to exert oneself to preserve it.
(Score: 1) by qwerty on Friday June 27 2014, @10:53PM
The original celluloid for Star Wars is stored 1000 feet underground in the vast, cool, ancient disused Spice Mines of Kessel ... er, I mean a Salt Mine in Kansas. http://www.kansastravel.org/hutchinson/kansasundergroundsaltmuseum2.htm [kansastravel.org]
(Score: 1) by Hawkwind on Friday June 27 2014, @11:32PM
Good to know there's a good chance the final copy to exist of SW might be of Hahn shooting first.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Blackmoore on Friday June 27 2014, @11:44PM
Pinky - Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Narf- I think so Brain, but what are we going to do with 200 year old yogurt?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 28 2014, @10:12AM
The original 35 mm film stock of "Star Wars." - everything that's wrong with copyright. People want this epochal cultural artifact, but the copyright holder denies it to culture. The LOC has a copy, but can't legally disseminate it. The original SW will be under copyright longer than the lives of the Generation X kids it influenced. This situation is tragic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30 2014, @04:14PM
Help us, Library of Congress. You're our only hope...of getting a hi-res digital version of the original Star Wars. Can we start a Kickstarter fund to hire expert spies/burglars to break in and steal that sh!t?