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The key advantage with digital is that it's easily copied. For that advantage to be worth anything, the material has to actually be...copied. Central reposito

The key advantage with digital is that it's easily copied. For that advantage to be worth anything, the material has to actually be...copied. Central repositories for this stuff are fine, maybe even essential. But they need to also be spreading around full copies quite liberally.

jedberg 11y ago
> For that advantage to be worth anything, the material has to actually be...copied. This is they key. I think people are afraid of our all digital world because no one backs anything up.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Also, digital is so efficient it accumulates far faster than older mediums. I find it a very telling pattern. Things are easy and so they get out of control. When I was a kid, a photo album had something like 50 tiny fading photos, and it covered 5 years or so. Each one was a very high density of memories. Now we have thousands of them. Curious.
  - jqm 11y ago
    In the old days someone put a photo album in a trunk in the attic. Then they got old, forgetful, the kids didn't care about the photos, then the person died. Years later someone else found the photo album. What happens in this scenario with digital photos? Sure, if someone is careful (and most people frankly aren't... I've seen more than a few people lose all their photos) you can keep backing them up. Until you can't anymore or you don't. Then they are gone.
- joshuapants 11y ago
  Except for the things you don't want anyone to ever see; those will propagate mercilessly.
cm2187 11y ago
Particularly text. Once OCR-ed, the content of the entire building fits on a consumer HD.
bottled_poe 11y ago
>The key advantage with digital is that it's easily copied. That and the fact that we can store an entire library of data in a searchable space the size of an ice cube.
userbinator 11y ago
The fact that digital media is so easily copied is what immensely scares the copyright/DRM advocates, so let's hope they don't get in the way of preserving history.

jedberg 11y ago

> For that advantage to be worth anything, the material has to actually be...copied. This is they key. I think people are afraid of our all digital world because no one backs anything up.

agumonkey 11y ago
Also, digital is so efficient it accumulates far faster than older mediums. I find it a very telling pattern. Things are easy and so they get out of control. When I was a kid, a photo album had something like 50 tiny fading photos, and it covered 5 years or so. Each one was a very high density of memories. Now we have thousands of them. Curious.
- jqm 11y ago
  In the old days someone put a photo album in a trunk in the attic. Then they got old, forgetful, the kids didn't care about the photos, then the person died. Years later someone else found the photo album. What happens in this scenario with digital photos? Sure, if someone is careful (and most people frankly aren't... I've seen more than a few people lose all their photos) you can keep backing them up. Until you can't anymore or you don't. Then they are gone.
joshuapants 11y ago
Except for the things you don't want anyone to ever see; those will propagate mercilessly.

cm2187 11y ago

Particularly text. Once OCR-ed, the content of the entire building fits on a consumer HD.

bottled_poe 11y ago

>The key advantage with digital is that it's easily copied. That and the fact that we can store an entire library of data in a searchable space the size of an ice cube.

userbinator 11y ago

The fact that digital media is so easily copied is what immensely scares the copyright/DRM advocates, so let's hope they don't get in the way of preserving history.