The Library of Congress has released a sobering new report on the state of digital audio preservation in the United States. The Library's National Recording Preservation Board concludes that most of the nation's audio libraries are ill-equipped to handle the complex array of streams and digital formats by which music and other recorded sounds are released today.
"It is relatively easy to recognize the importance of recorded sound from decades ago," the survey notes. "What is not so evident is that older recordings actually have better prospects to survive another 150 years than recordings made last week using digital technologies."
But even those older artifacts face the prospect of being lost to posterity because of our nation's copyright laws. So concludes The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States: A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age (PDF).
"Were copyright law followed to the letter, little audio preservation would be undertaken," the report warns. "Were the law strictly enforced, it would brand virtually all audio preservation as illegal."
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