HEARSAY CULTURE RADIO
Changing Digital Formats and New Legislation Create Shaky Ground
U.S. history is captured in the thousands of tapes, vinyl, and cassettes made over the years. But many of these historic recordings are in danger of being lost. This episode looks at how the law incentivizes and hinders the audio preservation work of archivists and sound engineers. Hearsay Culture discussed with Sam Brylawski, one of the world’s leading music archivists and curators of the Library of Congress, the role the law plays in our audio culture so these historic recordings can be listened to and learned from for many years to come.
“In the analog domain, every time you copied these signals, there’d be a deterioration between generations (of audio). The digital domain is challenged as well because there is no permanent digital medium.” – Sam Brylawski
*The one and only Clifford Brown interview we are left with, recorded by “accident” just months before his untimely death and referenced in this interview, is a true testament to how important recorded history is. You can watch it on YouTube here:
