Lost media

Lost media are media that have become nonexistent, missing, or unavailable to the general public. The term primarily encompasses visual, audio, or audiovisual media such as films, television and radio broadcasts, music,[2] and video games.[3][4]

This article is about lost audiovisual media. For other types of lost works, see Lost literary work and Lost artworks.
Theatrical release poster for the lost film London after Midnight, the last known copy of which was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire.[1]

Since the advent of streaming media on the Internet, use of the term lost media has concentrated on media that is not available on digital distribution or streaming platforms.[5] Such media—primarily recorded onto magnetic tape in the case of television and radio broadcast masters—may be entirely lost due to the industry practice of wiping (broadcast media was often considered ephemeral and of little historical worth before the rise of home media in the late 1970s). Others are known to exist but are hard to access outside of archives such as the Library of Congress of the United States and private collections.[6] The Lost Media Wiki, a wiki site founded by Daniel "Dycaite" Wilson in 2012, has spearheaded the search for numerous pieces of lost media, primarily obscure or unaired television programs, but also commercials, music, books and video games.[2][7][8]

Preservation efforts attempt to avoid the complete loss of works; this is usually done by storing them in archives, one example being the Arctic World Archive, which has been the chosen location for the preservation of the code on public repositories on GitHub[9] along with a wide range of data of interest to multiple companies, institutions and governments; including the Constitutions of Brazil and Norway.[10]

Lost film
Main article: Lost film
Further information: List of lost films

Lost works seem to encompass a large portion of silent films made in the United States. A 2013 report made by the United States Library of Congress estimates that 70 percent of silent films made in the United States have been completely lost.[11]

Lost television broadcast
Main article: Lost television broadcast

Lost video games

Video games, including digital downloads, often fade from existence when digital game stores close, as demonstrated by the Wii Shop Channel, V Cast Network and the Nintendo eShop on the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. The infamous P.T., a teaser to the unreleased Silent Hills game, became un-reloadable after its removal from the PlayStation Network within a year.[12] Fans of the game attempted to revive it, but were blocked from doing so due to legal issues with Konami. The Wii U and Nintendo 3DS digital download games Dodge Club Party and Dodge Club Pocket were removed from Nintendo eShop in 2019 and 2022 and became publicly unavailable due to controlling issues.[13] App Stores like Google Play are also known to frequently remove apps and games, which often are not relisted and become unavailable.

Lost electronic data
Further information: Digital dark age

Data stored in electronic computers risks being lost if it is not frequently migrated into more recent file formats. This happens because as new computer systems are developed and new technologies are built, now obsolete systems may break down over time, leaving the data inside inaccessible.[14] Electronic data preservation is further complicated by the fact that unless an emulator for a given computer system which can decode the data is present at the time of the preservation, the original data may become inaccessible as the original hardware breaks down, as it may depend on the original hardware to be decoded,[15] although in some cases the original data may be recoverable through lengthy reverse engineering work with the objective of understanding the original computer system enough to decode the most original electronic data possible.[16]

Lost Internet media

Media released on the internet, such as livestreams and blog posts, are especially vulnerable to being lost due to a number of issues, such as a website being shut down, it being deleted by the creator without being archived, or never having been archived in the first place.

See also

References
  1. Soister, John; Nicolella, Henry; Joyce, Steve; Long, Harry (2012). American Silent Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films, 1913–1929. McFarland. p. 333. ISBN 978-0786435814.
  2. Blanchet, Brenton (April 21, 2020). "The internet community unearthing lost episodes from your childhood faves". i-D. Vice Media. Archived from the original on July 11, 2021.
  3. Forrest, Eleanor (March 8, 2022). "Meet Raven Simone, the YouTuber who discovered the lost Mean Girls video game". NME. NME Networks. Archived from the original on March 8, 2022.
  4. Bell, Brendan (September 16, 2021). "Meet the YouTubers determined to find lost media". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on September 16, 2021.
  5. Leighton, Mara (August 23, 2022). "A YouTuber and Sailor Moon fanatic used the Library of Congress to uncover the never-aired pilot episode of an American version of the '90s hit show". Insider – via ProQuest.
  6. Hughes, William (June 18, 2022). "A 'lost,' 'too-scary' episode of Sesame Street has been uploaded to the internet". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on June 18, 2022.
  7. Kirsch, Melissa (March 17, 2021). "What We Miss". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 17, 2021.
  8. Vanderbilt, Mike (July 21, 2016). "The mystery of the phantom Billboard hit, 'Ready 'N' Steady', is finally solved". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on September 17, 2017.
  9. "GitHub will store all of its public open source code in an Arctic vault". Engadget. 15 November 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-11-15. Retrieved 2023-01-21.
  10. "Look inside the doomsday vault that may hold the world's most important data". NBC News. 7 June 2017. Retrieved 2023-01-21.
  11. "Library Reports on America's Endangered Silent-Film Heritage". News from the Library of Congress (Press release). Library of Congress. December 4, 2013. ISSN 0731-3527. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
  12. McWhertor, Michael; Sarkar, Samit (5 May 2015). "Konami pulls P.T. from PlayStation Store, no longer available for re-download (update)". Polygon. Vox Media. Archived from the original on 19 May 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2023.
  13. "Another Game Has Been Delisted from Nintendo eShop". January 25, 2022.
  14. Scott, Jessica (23 September 2013). "Long-term Digital Storage: Simple Steps to Get Started". History Associates. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  15. "What is emulation?". Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Archived from the original on 24 October 2015. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  16. Blakeslee, Sandra (20 March 1990). "Lost on Earth: Wealth of Data Found in Space". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 November 2012. Retrieved 24 January 2023.

Further reading
  • Hansen, Kathleen A.; Paul, Nora (2017). Future-proofing the news : preserving the first draft of history. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-6712-1. OCLC 961007777.
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