Canada broadcaster will destroy its CDs

[gvopedz]

"In 2012, and subsequent to a massive budget cut, the CBC began a policy of digitizing its collection to save space and storage costs...The main French-language production centre of Radio-Canada in Montreal has also been digitising its collection. However, recently it was revealed that most of the collection of over 200,000 CDs will be destroyed when the process is completed in 2019...The collection consists of some 151,000 CDs, and 56,000 'doubles'."

http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2018/02/23/public-broadcaster-music-library-closing-cds-to-be-digitised-destroyed/

 

[Hardbopjazz]

They should sell them here on the offering and looking for forum. 

[Ted O'Reilly]

Apparently there are deep copyright issues.  (Gotta make sure the Irving Berlin estate et al. stay wealthy!)

 

Speaking of collections:  https://tonedeaf.com.au/aussie-built-house-for-record-collection/

Edited February 26, 2018 by Ted O'Reilly
Additional information

[paul secor]

Destroy everything. Who cares about culture or history? 

[Ted O'Reilly]

8 minutes ago, paul secor said:

Destroy everything. Who cares about culture or history? 

Certainly not the Corporations who now own Rights once owned by individual creators.  It ain't Art, it's an asset!

[Guy Berger]

I assume digitization means shifting it to cloud storage?  i.e. nearly all of the content will be preserved?

If so, then this story kinda sucks because any endeavor of this kind will generate some losses of rare material (as would physically moving the CDs to a new building, FWIW), but nearly everything will be preserved.  There's nothing special about the CDs themselves.

The 78s, scores & manuscripts situation seems much more potentially alarming.

Guy

[clifford_thornton]

Bummer. Too bad they cannot sell the materials.

[mjazzg]

2 hours ago, Ted O'Reilly said:

Speaking of collections:  https://tonedeaf.com.au/aussie-built-house-for-record-collection/

British DJ, broadcaster and erstwhile Jazz fan Gilles Peterson reportedly has a separate house to store his collection (variously 30000-50000). 

[duaneiac]

2 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

Bummer. Too bad they cannot sell the materials.

Or even donate them to any interested libraries, schools, colleges, universities, senior centers, etc.

[mikeweil]

Wasn't there a report here in some thread that some libraries are disposing of their CDs as interest in them constantly decreases?

[clifford_thornton]

I think so, and it is true. Streaming content on a private/protected server seems to be the way to go, if they can get around copyright issues. 

[paul secor]

5 hours ago, Ted O'Reilly said:

Certainly not the Corporations who now own Rights once owned by individual creators.  It ain't Art, it's an asset!

You seem have an agenda here, but it's not the corporations who are planning to destroy materials - including 78s, scores, manuscripts, liner notes, etc. - unless you're talking about the CBC as a corporation.

[lipi]

3 hours ago, paul secor said:

You seem have an agenda here, but it's not the corporations who are planning to destroy materials - including 78s, scores, manuscripts, liner notes, etc. - unless you're talking about the CBC as a corporation.

That's an inane argument. The reason the CBC is destroying the material is because a) it's more expensive to store (in terms of money, or space, which is equivalent) and access (in terms of time) than the digital version; and b) they are not allowed by the copyright holders to keep a copy and pass on the physical media.

b) can be squarely blamed 100% on [insert adjectives of choice, over which we can argue at length] copyright owners. So you may argue with the necessity of a), but pretending that part b) does not lead directly to the destruction is just silly.

Arguing about the scores, vinyl, or shellac seems pointless, since the article explicitly states it is unknown what will happen with that part of the collection.

To be a little more constructive: the ideal here seems to be for CBC to strike a deal with the Big Four and ASCAP, BMI, and SOCAN that will make a one-time allowance for donating all the stuff. (I don't know how viable that is legally, but a man can dream.)

[paul secor]

55 minutes ago, lipi said:

That's an inane argument. The reason the CBC is destroying the material is because a) it's more expensive to store (in terms of money, or space, which is equivalent) and access (in terms of time) than the digital version; and b) they are not allowed by the copyright holders to keep a copy and pass on the physical media.

b) can be squarely blamed 100% on [insert adjectives of choice, over which we can argue at length] copyright owners. So you may argue with the necessity of a), but pretending that part b) does not lead directly to the destruction is just silly.

Arguing about the scores, vinyl, or shellac seems pointless, since the article explicitly states it is unknown what will happen with that part of the collection.

To be a little more constructive: the ideal here seems to be for CBC to strike a deal with the Big Four and ASCAP, BMI, and SOCAN that will make a one-time allowance for donating all the stuff. (I don't know how viable that is legally, but a man can dream.)

I don't see it as an inane argument.  Spend a few bucks and keep the physical media. I'm sure the Canadian government (like all governments) has a ton of wasted money in their budget, and I'm sure the CBC has many unneeded and highly paid administrators. If they wanted to, they could find the money and all of this would be moot.

[lipi]

4 minutes ago, paul secor said:

I don't see it as an inane argument.  Spend a few bucks and keep the physical media. I'm sure the Canadian government (like all governments) has a ton of wasted money in their budget, and I'm sure the CBC has many unneeded and highly paid administrators. If they wanted to, they could find the money and all of this would be moot.

When was the last time public broadcasting and the arts had lots of money? (Even in Canada.)

If I were to grant your premise (that money is available for this), then I agree with you: save everything. I just don't think the premise is realistic. So question back to you: if we discard the premise of there being money (just for argument's sake), what is CBC to do here?

[Misterioso]

Here is the Australian version of this story: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/30/abc-dismantles-sound-libraries-and-axes-staff-to-improve-budget.

[gvopedz]

There are a few other versions of the story.  In some cases, the items (including books and magazines) are moved to a distant storage.  One example happened last year at the University of Texas at Austin – all the CDs, DVDs, books, etc., were moved out of the Fine Arts library:

“Almost 100 students voiced opposition to the removal of fine arts books and collection materials at the UT Fine Arts Library, FAL… Sixty percent of collection materials have already been moved to storage facilities off-campus, according to an October FAL memo. The materials can be retrieved within three business days upon request… Grace Sparapani, graduate art history student, admitted FAL CDs and DVDs were no longer used on campus, but she said maintaining paper collections on-campus is necessary for student projects and research.”

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2017/11/09/fine-arts-community-debates-future-of-fine-arts-library

 

 

[Guy Berger]

9 hours ago, paul secor said:

I don't see it as an inane argument.  Spend a few bucks and keep the physical media. I'm sure the Canadian government (like all governments) has a ton of wasted money in their budget, and I'm sure the CBC has many unneeded and highly paid administrators. If they wanted to, they could find the money and all of this would be moot.

Leaving aside material that is genuinely rare or of historical value - why is saving the physical media necessary?

[paul secor]

If you're going to destroy 78s, scores, manuscripts, liner notes, and other material that can't be replaced - or at least easily replaced - something is lost. Has nothing ever been lost that's been digitalized?

If the CBC wants to destroy everything, it's none of my business. Governments and their agencies do pretty much whatever they wish, with no controls.
 

[sidewinder]

22 hours ago, mjazzg said:

British DJ, broadcaster and erstwhile Jazz fan Gilles Peterson reportedly has a separate house to store his collection (variously 30000-50000). 

Ed Dipple of Mole Jazz reputedly had a lock-up but that is in another league !

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

dog why dont they do a record sale and make money or at least just put it in the dumpster and let diving comennce....but "destroy"? 

i hope they just threw this tape out and forgot to destroy 

 

 

Edited February 28, 2018 by chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez

[JSngry]

I'm all in favor of history, those who do not learn from it, etc., but I'm also a fan of people being allowed to forget so they don't keep being repeater pencils. Oh, so we don't know everything that ever happened since the beginning of time, what would we do if we did?

That might be a bit much, but this is not - has the availability of so much in so much detail emboldened imagination, or simply redirected it towards the pursuit of a conscious re-doing under the guise of "creativity. I know, no mater where you go, there you are, but if you already know where you are, then you already know where you'll be if you bother to go. That doesn't seem like a fair fight to me.

At some point, civilization needs to forget in order to fall apart, pick itself up, and start all over again - without necessarily realizing it. It's either that or else, you know, we already know so much, let's learn even more of what we already know. Is that gonna work, really?

Consider also - once ideas become "property" to be "preserved", then ownership is power. When nobody knows anything, brute force is power. somewhere in between, there's figuring it out for yourself and letting the power of our ideas drive their own future, and I think at some point, you just have to forget about remembering. At least some of it.

Collectors hate this idea. Anarchists should fear it, because most people, including anarchists, aren't nearly as clever (or strong) as they think they are.

Really - 200,00 CDs of the past. That's a buttload full of past, too much of a buttload, in my opinion. It's like population in general, at what point does the exponential growth start to yield a negative return?

Embrace life, hell yeah, but at some point...just get out of the way, make room. That's the way this shit is designed to work.

[John Tapscott]

I don't think they should be destroyed. We've got loads of room in Canada. Surely they can be stored in an abandoned mine shaft somewhere. 

But seriously, I don't think they should be destroyed. Doesn't seem right. Digitizing them is just not the same. Sorry. Guess I still have a fondness for physical product. 

Edited March 1, 2018 by John Tapscott

[JSngry]

Let Neil Young take them and make them sound better than ever!

[catesta]

On ‎2‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 9:56 PM, lipi said:

When was the last time public broadcasting and the arts had lots of money? (Even in Canada.)

If I were to grant your premise (that money is available for this), then I agree with you: save everything. I just don't think the premise is realistic. So question back to you: if we discard the premise of there being money (just for argument's sake), what is CBC to do here?

From what I've read, CBC has around $560 million a year in revenue and receives $1.09 billion a year in government funding. That is lots of money. Of course, it operates at a loss, but still, if they wanted to keep, I'm sure they would find a way.