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Comment by YurgenJurgensen | Hacker News Reader

A museum that nobody can access is just a warehouse.

True enough, but even physical museums have warehouses where the artefacts are safely preserved between viewings.

Analogies aside, I’m not against anyone using Youtube (or any other platform) for distribution - just that it absolutely should not be also used for your actual archive. There are much, much safer and better systems for that.

Replicate to preserve!

Those often support researchers and aren't just warehouses but it is a bit disappointing how much of the really neat stuff you can't see without special access. I really enjoy seeing rock and mineral collections and got a tour of the Royal Ontario Museum collection from a research collaborator when I was in Toronto and it was so cool to see.

On the other hand, is it that difficult to get special access? I'm sure every museum is different, along with the broad attitudes of the country, specialism etc. On a few occasions, I have been shown things by enthusiastic members staff that usually wouldn't be on display, so I suspect that with the right combination of genuine expertise, courtesy and patience nothing is impossible to view, regardless of current status or academic qualification.

That's generally the case with most museums. Only a fraction have physical displays.

The idea is that the "stuff" is archived or stored properly which is much less of a burden. When it's desirable to do so public displays of it can be created.

Nobody can prohibit the preservation, that is to say archiving, of copyrighted works. This right is protected by the law, at least in the US which is relevant here.

What is prohibited by law is distribution of copyrighted works. You need permission or an appropriate license from the rightsholders concerned to distribute or otherwise perform a copyrighted work in public.

It is nearly always the latter that a lot of these so-called "archives" trip over. Everyone, including Big Corp, is fine with having their copyrighted works preserved.

Obligatory IANAL.

Big Corp is absolutely not fine with having their work preserved. See for example the Disney Vault and the recent move to create modern adaptations rather than doing reruns of classics. They are terrified of their works entering public domain and want you to forget they ever existed at all and just pay your monthly streaming fee.

Preservation and archiving can be done regardless of copyright status. Disney wants to renew their copyright because they don't want their stuff distributed.

A museum acting as a warehouse is preserving the past for the future, when what they’ve archived can be made publicly available again.

Most museums display only a fraction of their holdings at any given time.

Because of limitations on physical space.

I think curation is inherently valued too.

And if the full collection is on display, more people can curate

Doesn't curation imply the full collection is not on display? I guess it depends on the definition you use.

In the digital preservation world, a 'display' is just a playlist on YouTube or a webpage surrounding specific recordings with extra information. In this context, it is certainly plausible to have several distinct 'curations' of the same artefacts being shown simultaneously.

Don’t think you’re understanding what curate means in this context

With a TV show, I would expect the curation to involve exhibits about it. Summaries, context, interviews, etc. The actual episodes should be easy to access and not in cold storage.

In the TV show case I think curation means highlighting notable content and grouping together similar content (for various definitions of similar). I suppose the algorithms attempt to do this but are generally bad compared to human curation. I agree that it makes no sense to have all content available underneath this curation though.

Museum, often, are 90% warehouse.

The idea that museums should have exhibitions and be open to the public was a later development.

Distributed p2p is a thing.

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