Copyright term, film labeling, and film preservation legislation : hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session, on H.R. 989, H.R. 1248, and H.R. 1734 ... June 1 and July 13, 1995 (1996)

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437 available source materials are used for each title, the film holdings in public and commercial archives should be made accessible to preservationists in an online environment. We recognize reasonable proprietary restraints in making private holdings public but also see potential benefits to all parties. As a first step, the National Film Preservation Board plans to convene a working session for large archives and the appropriate studio rightsholders to explore sharing inventories for pre1950 materials. Existing databases should be surveyed for their accessibility and usefulness as preservation tools. Planning for Future Preservation Technologies Electronic technologies are improving with astounding speed. With them come great opportunities but also a temptation to find preservation panaceas. It is impossible to predict the future, but we make the following general recommendation. Recommendatjon 3.7: Encourage a "two-path" approach that (1) actively explores the Digital Preservation preservation potential of digital and other copying technologies while also remembering that (2) it remains essential to save original Films for as long as possible. The distinction between digital access and digital preservation is key to the archival role for new electronic technologies. These are already transforming film access but archives should insist that certain stringent criteria be met before new technologies are adopted as preservation media. These criteria include: (a) picture and sound quality equal to the original; (b) ability to support production of new film elements without significant picture or sound loss; (c) an archival longevity (ideally, 100 years) alongside assurance that playback equipment would be available for an extended time; (d) capability to be stored in reasonable temperature and humidity conditions; (e) capability to record data from the original film needed for restorations (e.g., splices, edge codes); and (0 a cost no greater than film-to-film copying. Even when such a technology is attained, two fundamentals remain. A master always holds more information than any reproduction, and no matter how faithful, inexpensive, or durable an electronic copy, it must be refreshed and reconfigured for use with changing access systems. The only thing that seems certain about future electronic systems is their rapid obsolescence. Already a central problem in video preservation is constructing equipment to play recordings made only a few years ago. Notwithstanding unforeseen advances in electronic copying and access technologies, film remains the most Rethinking Physical Preservation 5