[HN Gopher] Lost "Doctor Who" episodes found but owner is reluct...
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       Lost "Doctor Who" episodes found but owner is reluctant to hand
       them to BBC
        
       Author : wslh
       Score  : 166 points
       Date   : 2023-11-11 13:08 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | h2odragon wrote:
       | FYI, archive.org has a bunch of whats been available:
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/doctorwho_s01
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/doctorwho_s02
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/doctorwho_s03_v2
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/doctorwho_s04
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/doctorwho_s05
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/doctorwho_s06
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/doctorwho_s07
       | 
       | https://archive.org/details/doctorwho_s08
        
         | jakderrida wrote:
         | Holy crap! How long has this been available? Every time I read
         | up on it, finding it was like the thing of legends.
        
           | edent wrote:
           | Those aren't lost episodes. They are available on DVD and
           | iPlayer.
        
             | jakderrida wrote:
             | Oh, now I got it. Thank you so much for clarifying.
        
       | rbanffy wrote:
       | The easiest solution would be to send them anonymously to a third
       | party abroad, who'd then proceed to digitise the tapes, returning
       | the originals to the collectors, and hand the resulting files to
       | the BBC. Setting up a trustable network of anonymous relays
       | crossing jurisdictions for physical goods is the hard part, and
       | tends to attract the wrong kind of attention to the ones
       | involved.
        
         | egorfine wrote:
         | I'm such a third party, could do it.
         | 
         | I could't care less about restoring BBC history if BBC
         | themselves don't care enough to lay down a legal way for this
         | to happen without my help.
        
           | thatguy0900 wrote:
           | This is how it feels to me. Dump them on a pirate site, no
           | reason to give them to the BBC if they have no interest in
           | trying to get them
        
             | rbanffy wrote:
             | Are we sure the copyright belongs to BBC and not the royal
             | family?
        
         | drewcoo wrote:
         | > The easiest solution would be to . . .
         | 
         | That doesn't meet the goal of amnesty.
         | 
         | Before the footage is made available, the people holding that
         | footage have leverage.
         | 
         | Once they share it somehow, the leverage is gone and it's
         | unlikely that they'd be given amnesty. In fact, the act of
         | sharing the footage has some nonzero chance of revealing people
         | . . .
        
           | rbanffy wrote:
           | They wouldn't need amnesty if they can never be identified.
           | Also, they could return the BBCs property anonymously and
           | release the digitised versions after that.
        
         | deely3 wrote:
         | Surely this third party abroad will not alter stored footage
         | with some hidden and pranky details..
        
       | wilg wrote:
       | Why is the BBC being weird about it?
        
         | rodent_rodeo wrote:
         | In the article: The collectors involved are ex-employees and so
         | are terrified. The rule was that you didn't take anything, even
         | if it had been thrown out. But if you loved film and knew it
         | would be important one day, what did you do? So what we need
         | now is an amnesty," he said.
        
         | Mindwipe wrote:
         | There have been a lot of attempts to extort money out of the
         | BBC by people falsely claiming that they have lost episodes
         | over the years, they may simply not believe these claims are as
         | credible as the article suggests.
        
           | gwern wrote:
           | That doesn't make any sense. OP is about reports that BBC
           | refuses to make any legal promises and talk only vaguely
           | about cooperating with owners, when it would be so easy for
           | them to simply publicly promise to not prosecute material
           | stole before, say, 1990. Obviously, granting 'an amnesty for
           | stolen episodes' is even easier for fake episodes which were
           | never stolen in the first place... The credibility of the
           | claims is irrelevant.
        
       | walterbell wrote:
       | Preservers of cultural memory should be rewarded.
       | 
       | Canada spent years digitizing classic TV and published the shows
       | on a Youtube channel, then suddenly deleted all the content
       | without notice to archivers,
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35716982.
       | 
       | In the absence of social contracts for preservation, we are left
       | with defensive archiving.
        
         | petermcneeley wrote:
         | Why preserve what you wish not to remember.
        
           | patmorgan23 wrote:
           | Because someone else might want to remember
        
             | hughesjj wrote:
             | And that someone else may be future me
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | which is funny, as who is going to watch all of this older
             | content? younger generations do not watch older content.
             | there's so much content being made daily that there's not
             | enough time to watch old stuff even if it might be of
             | interest. they just wait for it to be remade.
        
               | david-gpu wrote:
               | Researchers.
        
               | Exoristos wrote:
               | People watch older content all the time.
        
               | kubiton wrote:
               | Ml training for example.
               | 
               | "Generate cartoon in style of"
        
           | unicornmama wrote:
           | Because you don't create the future by destroying the past.
        
       | 462436347 wrote:
       | > These collectors were seen as criminals, but now we can see
       | they are really saviours. An amnesty would stop them being
       | frightened of prosecution," he said.
       | 
       | The UK is unusual in that it has no statute of limitations for
       | most crimes besides "summary offenses" (equivalent to US
       | misdemeanors):
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limitation_periods_in_the_Unit...
        
         | gonzo41 wrote:
         | He should give the tapes to the British museum out of spite.
         | They BBC will never get the back and the British Museum doesn't
         | care what crimes were committed as long as their collection
         | grows.
        
           | arp242 wrote:
           | Send the tapes to Greece, Egypt, Nigeria, what-have-you.
        
       | astrange wrote:
       | > perhaps pay something to these elderly collectors, a few of
       | whom are now unwell, or caring for others
       | 
       | This reasoning would be a surprise to all the Europeans who like
       | to say their universal healthcare means noone can possibly ever
       | be out a single cent from being ill.
        
         | Philpax wrote:
         | What are you on about
        
           | astrange wrote:
           | It's a common (maybe) sentiment that the only cost to being
           | sick in the UK is having to pay for parking at the hospital.
           | 
           | I actually asked what happens if you own your own business
           | and eg were in the hospital for cancer for months recently
           | and a bunch of European posters got extremely huffy and
           | lectured me that you would never be in any trouble in your
           | life ever at all because unemployment would cover all of it.
           | So I would say they appear to actually believe this.
        
       | stevage wrote:
       | Seems like an article that would have been vastly improved if
       | they had simply put the question about an amnesty directly to the
       | BBC and printed their response.
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-12 23:01 UTC)