The ‘Race Against Time’ to Save Music Legends’ Decaying Tapes; The New York Times, December 1, 2025

 

Ben Sisario

Visuals by Peter Fisher

, The New York Times; The ‘Race Against Time’ to Save Music Legends’ Decaying Tapes

"IRON MOUNTAIN IS a $25 billion company that specializes in “information management.” With more than 1,200 facilities around the world — including a 315-acre underground complex in a former limestone mine in western Pennsylvania — it offers secure storage for corporate records, as well as for media assets from Hollywood studios, record companies and prestige clients like the Grammys and the Prince estate. Within its vaults lie seemingly endless shelves of film, videotape and audio reels...

Pribble’s colleagues at Iron Mountain say their biggest challenge has been finding a way to scale his time-consuming work of restoring tape. Pribble has a solution for that, too: a new set of machines that would automate his processes, allowing him to establish satellite workshops around the world.

“They’ve always been saying they can’t clone Kelly,” he said. “This is kind of cloning me."

‘The Library of Congress’ Review: Corridors of Knowledge; The Wall Street Journal, November 25, 2025

 Michael Auslin , The Wall Street Journal; ‘The Library of Congress’ Review: Corridors of Knowledge

"When the president unexpectedly fired the librarian of Congress, a prominent legislator denounced the “open despotism which now rules at Washington.” The year was 1829, and as Andrew Jackson installed a political ally as librarian, it was Henry Clay who accused the president of being a threat to democracy. 

This is but one vignette from Jane Aikin’s comprehensive history “The Library of Congress” (Georgetown, 356 pages, $32.95), which shows how bare-knuckled domestic politics have often shadowed the crown jewel of America’s intellectual institutions. In April, the library turned 225 years old, secure in its position as one of the world’s largest libraries. It now houses approximately 178 million items, from ancient clay tablets to Stradivarius violins, from the Gutenberg Bible to ever-expanding digital records."

Internet Archive’s legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost; Ars Technica, November 3, 2025

 ASHLEY BELANGER , Ars Technica; Internet Archive’s legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

"This month, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine archived its trillionth webpage, and the nonprofit invited its more than 1,200 library partners and 800,000 daily users to join a celebration of the moment. To honor “three decades of safeguarding the world’s online heritage,” the city of San Francisco declared October 22 to be “Internet Archive Day.” The Archive was also recently designated a federal depository library by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who proclaimed the organization a “perfect fit” to expand “access to federal government publications amid an increasingly digital landscape.”

The Internet Archive might sound like a thriving organization, but it only recently emerged from years of bruising copyright battles that threatened to bankrupt the beloved library project. In the end, the fight led to more than 500,000 books being removed from the Archive’s “Open Library.”

“We survived,” Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle told Ars. “But it wiped out the Library.”

An Internet Archive spokesperson confirmed to Ars that the archive currently faces no major lawsuits and no active threats to its collections. Kahle thinks “the world became stupider” when the Open Library was gutted—but he’s moving forward with new ideas."

Internet Archive ends legal battle with record labels over historic recordings; San Francisco Chronicle, September 15, 2025

 Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chronicle; Internet Archive ends legal battle with record labels over historic recordings

"The case, UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Internet Archive, targeted the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project, an initiative to digitize more than 400,000 fragile shellac records from the early 20th century. The collection includes music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, and has been made available online for free public access.

Record labels including Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and Capitol Records had sought $621 million in damages, arguing the Internet Archive’s streaming of these recordings constituted copyright infringement.

The lawsuit drew widespread attention from musicians and preservationists."

It's Copyright Week 2025: Join Us in the Fight for Better Copyright Law and Policy; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), January 27, 2025

KATHARINE TRENDACOSTA, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); It's Copyright Week 2025: Join Us in the Fight for Better Copyright Law and Policy

"We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, and addressing what's at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation 

We continue to fight for a version of copyright that does what it is supposed to. And so, every year, EFF and a number of diverse organizations participate in Copyright Week. Each year, we pick five copyright issues to highlight and advocate a set of principles of copyright law. This year’s issues are: 

• Monday: Copyright Policy Should Be Made in the Open With Input From Everyone: Copyright is not a niche concern. It affects everyone’s experience online, therefore laws and policy should be made in the open and with users’ concerns represented and taken into account. 

• Tuesday: Copyright Enforcement as a Tool of Censorship: Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right essential to a functioning democracy. Copyright should encourage more speech, not act as a legal cudgel to silence it.  

• Wednesday: Device and Digital Ownership: As the things we buy increasingly exist either in digital form or as devices with software, we also find ourselves subject to onerous licensing agreements and technological restrictions. If you buy something, you should be able to truly own it – meaning you can learn how it works, repair it, remove unwanted features, or tinker with it to make it work in a new way.  

• Thursday: The Preservation and Sharing of Information and Culture:Copyright often blocks the preservation and sharing of information and culture, traditionally in the public interest. Copyright law and policy should encourage and not discourage the saving and sharing of information. 

• Friday: Free Expression and Fair Use: Copyright policy should encourage creativity, not hamper it. Fair use makes it possible for us to comment, criticize, and rework our common culture.  

Every day this week, we’ll be sharing links to blog posts on these topics at https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek." 

Column: A Faulkner classic and Popeye enter the public domain while copyright only gets more confusing; Los Angeles Times, December 31, 2024

Michael Hiltzik , Los Angeles Times; Column: A Faulkner classic and Popeye enter the public domain while copyright only gets more confusing

"The annual flow of copyrighted works into the public domain underscores how the progressive lengthening of copyright protection is counter to the public interest—indeed, to the interests of creative artists. The initial U.S. copyright act, passed in 1790, provided for a term of 28 years including a 14-year renewal. In 1909, that was extended to 56 years including a 28-year renewal.

In 1976, the term was changed to the creator’s life plus 50 years. In 1998, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act, which is known as the Sonny Bono Act after its chief promoter on Capitol Hill. That law extended the basic term to life plus 70 years; works for hire (in which a third party owns the rights to a creative work), pseudonymous and anonymous works were protected for 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.

Along the way, Congress extended copyright protection from written works to movies, recordings, performances and ultimately to almost all works, both published and unpublished.

Once a work enters the public domain, Jenkins observes, “community theaters can screen the films. Youth orchestras can perform the music publicly, without paying licensing fees. Online repositories such as the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, Google Books and the New York Public Library can make works fully available online. This helps enable both access to and preservation of cultural materials that might otherwise be lost to history.”"

KATHLEEN HANNA, TEGAN AND SARA, MORE BACK INTERNET ARCHIVE IN $621 MILLION COPYRIGHT FIGHT; Rolling Stone, December 9, 2024

 JON BLISTEIN, Rolling Stone; KATHLEEN HANNA, TEGAN AND SARA, MORE BACK INTERNET ARCHIVE IN $621 MILLION COPYRIGHT FIGHT

"Kathleen Hanna, Tegan and Sara, and Amanda Palmer are among the 300-plus musicians who have signed an open letter supporting the Internet Archive as it faces a $621 million copyright infringement lawsuit over its efforts to preserve 78 rpm records...

The lawsuit was brought last year by several major music rights holders, led by Universal Music Group and Sony Music. They claimed the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project — an unprecedented effort to digitize hundreds of thousands of obsolete shellac discs produced between the 1890s and early 1950s — constituted the “wholesale theft of generations of music,” with “preservation and research” used as a “smokescreen.” (The Archive has denied the claims.)

While more than 400,000 recordings have been digitized and made available to listen to on the Great 78 Project, the lawsuit focuses on about 4,000, most by recognizable legacy acts like Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Ella Fitzgerald. With the maximum penalty for statutory damages at $150,000 per infringing incident, the lawsuit has a potential price tag of over $621 million. A broad enough judgement could end the Internet Archive.

Supporters of the suit — including the estates of many of the legacy artists whose recordings are involved — claim the Archive is doing nothing more than reproducing and distributing copyrighted works, making it a clear-cut case of infringement. The Archive, meanwhile, has always billed itself as a research library (albeit a digital one), and its supporters see the suit (as well as a similar one brought by book publishers) as an attack on preservation efforts, as well as public access to the cultural record."

Internet Archive Court Loss Leaves Higher Ed in Gray Area; Inside Higher Ed, September 9, 2024

 Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed; Internet Archive Court Loss Leaves Higher Ed in Gray Area

"Pandemic-era library programs that helped students access books online could be potentially threatened by an appeals court ruling last week. 

Libraries across the country, from Carnegie Mellon University to the University of California system, turned to what’s known as a digital or controlled lending program in 2020, which gave students a way to borrow books that weren’t otherwise available. Those programs are small in scale and largely experimental but part of a broader shift in modernizing the university library.

But the appeals court ruling could upend those programs...

Still, librarians at colleges and elsewhere, along with other experts, feared that the long-running legal fight between the Internet Archive and leading publishers could imperil the ability of libraries to own and preserve books, among other ramifications."

Sony copyright claims for Bewitched spell trouble for group that preserves old TV [Updated]; Are Technica, September 5, 2023

 JON BRODKIN , Ars Technica; Sony copyright claims for Bewitched spell trouble for group that preserves old TV [Updated]

"[Update at 6:56 pm ET: It looks like Rick Klein will be able to keep the YouTube channel running. Sony's copyright office emailed Klein after this article was published, saying it would "inform MarkScan to request retractions for the notices issued in response to the 27 full-length episode postings of Bewitched" in exchange for "assurances from you that you or the Fuzzy Memories TV Channel will not post or re-post any infringing versions from Bewitched or other content owned or distributed by SPE [Sony Pictures Entertainment] companies."

Sony said it's taking that step because "this is the first time we have become aware of your YouTube Channel posting unauthorized versions of SPE-distributed content, and the unique circumstances therein." However, Sony told Klein that his channel must remove "similarly infringing posts for other SPE-distributed shows," pointing out that he had posted episodes from other Sony shows.]

Original story: A nonprofit that preserves classic television videos may have its YouTube channel shut down tomorrow over copyright claims for Bewitched episodes that originally aired in the 1960s.

The Museum of Classic Chicago Television has about 5,000 videos, including many decades-old commercials and news shows, posted on its YouTube channel and its own Fuzzy Memories website. President and chief curator Rick Klein's "quest to save vintage Chicago TV shows and commercials" was featured in a WBEZ storytwo years ago.

But after 16 years of Klein and his group, who rely on donors and volunteers, archiving old videos, the TV museum's YouTube channel on August 30 received six copyright strikes for posting 27 Bewitched episodes owned by Sony Pictures Television. Copyright complaints were sent by MarkScan, a "digital asset protection" firm that content owners hire to enforce copyrights. MarkScan has been sending copyright complaints on Sony's behalf since at least 2014.

Klein told Ars today that he's not opposed to the Bewitched videos' deletion and that he has no intention of reposting them. But over the past few days he has been trying to reach anyone at MarkScan or Sony who can reverse the copyright strikes so he can continue the Museum of Classic Chicago Television's YouTube channel."

Record Labels File $412 Million Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Internet Archive; Rolling Stone, August 12, 2023

 ALTHEA LEGASPI, Rolling Stone; Record Labels File $412 Million Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Internet Archive

"UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP, Sony Music Entertainment, Capitol, and other record labels filed a copyright lawsuit on Friday against Internet Archive, founder Brewster Kahle, and others over the organization’s “Great 78 Project,” accusing them of behaving as an “illegal record store.” The suit lists 2,749 pre-1972 musical works available via Internet Archive by late artists, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, and Bing Crosby, among others.

The suit, which was filed in federal court and reviewed by Rolling Stone, claims the Internet Archive’s “Great 78 Project” — launched by Internet Archive as a community project for “the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records,” according to its blog — has violated copyright laws. By “transferring copies of those files to members of the public, Internet Archive has reproduced and distributed without authorization Plaintiffs’ protected sound recordings,” the suit alleges.

The nonprofit Internet Archive began in 1996, stating its mission is to “provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.” It purports to be a digital library that provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. Its “Great 78 Project” follows suit; the community project dedicates itself to “the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records” per a post about the project. It provides free access to “over 400,000 recordings” as Internet Archive estimates in its post."

Library seeks community's help to document COVID-19 changes to daily life; University of North Georgia, May 21, 2020

Clark Leonard, University of North Georgia; Library seeks community's help to document COVID-19 changes to daily life

"Joy Bolt, dean of libraries at UNG, said part of the impetus for the project came when she and Allison Galloup, special collection and digital initiatives librarian, sought documents related to the 1918 flu pandemic.

"We were both somewhat surprised to find little in our collection on the subject," Bolt said. "This is one reason why we thought it was important for us to collect information about the experiences of our Northeast Georgia community for future scholars and researchers. It will be there when people want to look back on this time and see how things were for so many of us."

To submit your story, use the library's collection form and upload your file or email it to archives@ung.edu.

Galloup knows many people will wonder if their items are needed or worth sending. She has a simple message.

"Nothing is too mundane to share. We cannot do this without the community's help. While there may be similarities in all of our stories, each person's experience and perspective is unique," Galloup said. "We're asking you to share whatever you'd like, in whatever format you'd like. Those who would like to participate can submit videos, voice recordings, scans, photographs, or text documents.""

The Washington Post; National Archives says it was wrong to alter images; The Washington Post, January 18, 2020

Steve Thompson and Joe Heim , The Washington Post; National Archives says it was wrong to alter images

 

"Officials at the National Archives on Saturday said they had removed from display an altered photo from the 2017 Women’s March in which signs held by marchers critical of President Trump had been blurred.

 

In tweets on Saturday, the museum apologized and said: “We made a mistake.”

“As the National Archives of the United States, we are and have always been completely committed to preserving our archival holdings, without alteration,” one of the tweets said.

“This photo is not an archival record held by the @usnatarchives, but one we licensed to use as a promotional graphic,” it said in another tweet. “Nonetheless, we were wrong to alter the image.”...

Marchers in the 2017 photograph by Mario Tama of Getty Images were shown carrying a variety of signs, at least four of which were altered by the museum. A placard that proclaimed “God Hates Trump” had Trump blotted out so that it read “God Hates.” A sign that read “Trump & GOP — Hands Off Women” had the word Trump blurred. Signs with messages that referenced women’s anatomy were also digitally altered."

National Archives exhibit blurs images critical of President Trump; The Washington Post, January 17, 2020

Joe Heim , The Washington Post; National Archives exhibit blurs images critical of President Trump

 

""There's no reason for the National Archives to ever digitally alter a historic photograph," Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley said. "If they don't want to use a specific image, then don't use it. But to confuse the public is reprehensible. The head of the Archives has to very quickly fix this damage. A lot of history is messy, and there's zero reason why the Archives can't be upfront about a photo from a women's march."...

 

Karin Wulf, a history professor at the College of William & Mary and executive director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, said that to ensure transparency, the Archives at the very least should have noted prominently that the photo had been altered.

"The Archives has always been self-conscious about its responsibility to educate about source material, and in this case they could have said, or should have said, 'We edited this image in the following way for the following reasons,' " she said. "If you don't have transparency and integrity in government documents, democracy doesn't function.""

Indigenous Knowledge Misappropriation: The Case Of The Zia Sun Symbol Explained At WIPO; Intellectual Property Watch, December 11, 2018

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; Indigenous Knowledge Misappropriation: The Case Of The Zia Sun Symbol Explained At WIPO

"The three panellists mentioned the importance of the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [pdf], and in particular Article 31, which asserts the right of indigenous peoples to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, TK and TCEs,  and the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over their cultural heritage, TK, and TCEs.

Commenting on the Zia case, June Lorenzo, a lawyer advocating in tribal and domestic courts and legislative and international human rights bodies, said in the late 1890s, Zia was at a very vulnerable point, as many other tribes were. A number of archaeologists came and took “what they could because they thought we were going to disappear as a civilisation,” she said, noting that the stolen pot was repatriated in 2000 or 2002.

In 1925, when the Zia symbol was adopted by the state of New Mexico, the Zia were not even considered as citizens of the United States, she said, and could not vote. “So the idea that they should have objected to this [ the use of the symbol] in 1925 … is just absurd.”"

Einstein’s ‘God Letter,’ a Viral Missive From 1954; The New York Times, December 2, 2018

James Barron, The New York Times;
Einstein’s ‘God Letter,’ a Viral Missive From 1954

[Kip Currier: This article is interesting in and of itself, but as someone teaching IP, where we frequently look at issues of digitization, I was especially intrigued to learn about the ongoing Einstein Papers Project. Knowing how phenomenally useful Cambridge University's Darwin Correspondence Project's digitized letters were for my own dissertation research exploring Charles Darwin's information behaviors, I can imagine the treasure trove of insights relevant to many disciplines that will be gleaned--and now made accessible to diverse worldwide users--from Einstein's digitized writings.

These kinds of massive "knowledge access for the public good" projects (--like Harvard's recently inaugurated Caselaw Access Project) are commendable exemplars of the positive intersections that technology, academic scholarship, and research institutions like CalTech and Cambridge can promote and achieve on behalf of global audiences.]

"Diana L. Kormos-Buchwald, a professor of history at the California Institute of Technology and the director of the Einstein Papers Project, said that Einstein was “not particularly thrilled at the special place that Gutkind devotes to Einstein’s science as the — how shall we put it — the best example of Jewish deterministic thought.”"