If you erase a letter on a typed document, is there proof it was even there? With physical media, erasing something often still leaves a mark, or at least damages the material. However, the backspace key accomplishes something that we’ve never seen before: Full erasure of existence.
With this revelation, the idea of lost media becomes all the more prevalent. The internet cultivates a sense of information security, where users believe that information is permanent, for better or for worse. The lengths that many would go to to preserve physical media would not be afforded to digital media. In this age, it has to be on the internet, right? So why preserve it? However, this mindset has led to the loss of media. Television shows, songs, and more disappear at the touch of a delete button.
In an interesting turn of events, some pirating websites have become the heroes of this story. Despite obtaining and sharing digital content illegally, they have become the only way to view some pieces of digital content. While we see streaming giants delete entire series with reckless abandon in order to void paying residuals, the piracy websites lay low and allow people to continue experiencing this content. But what happens if the piracy website gets taken down?
This brings us full circle, back to physical media. Truly the most safe way to preserve a piece of digital media is to somehow save it physically, then take care to preserve that physical piece of media’s safe keeping.
The following video is an example of lost media. Only this clip has been found of a full pilot episode of a series based on the 1996 movie 101 Dalmatians.
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