RE: arsclist National Recording Registry: Nominations

["George Brock-Nannestad" <pattac@xxxxxxxx>]

From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad

I am intrigued by the idea that a number of sound recordings 
should be made available for permanent reference through the US 
National Registry. However, even after having consulted the 
guidelines on the www.loc.gov/nrpb website, I am none the wiser 
concerning the following question:

 - is it the physical item carrying the sound recording and requiring 
some kind of apparatus for its reproduction that is to be included,

OR

 - is it the sound recording proper, i.e. a certain number of minutes, 
seconds and decimals of sound (when reproduced at the correct 
speed), having the intended balance between high and low 
frequencies (when reproduced with the correct equalisation). In that 
case the physical embodiment on the carrier would be only a 
convenient way of referring to the sound recording (by e.g. a 
catalogue number or matrix number).

In the latter case, we will indeed have prepared for the ultimate 
mass storage future, because the sound recording will be 
completely disembodied from any distinguishable carrier, unless 
the tape and data block number (in hexadecimal!) or some header 
meta-data is the future reference to the recording. Obviously we will 
at the same time have solved the problem to occur soon, that the 
original was generated completely digitally and cannot with reason 
be linked to some tiny R-DAT cassette forever.

As a last bit of viewpoint, one of the recordings that I would like to 
nominate is "only" distinguished by the fact that it was pressed in 
a particular foreign country (albeit for the US market), thereby 
reflecting that the US manufacturer was exteremely hard pressed 
(excuse the pun!) to get his records out. It thereby reflects 
materially on the legal and economical situation of this particular  
US manufacturer precisely in those turbulent times. It is hence a 
document of high evidential value, but not because of the recording 
as such. Any recording of this manufacturer subjected to this 
foreign manufacture would have the same value, but I have never 
come across any other records of this particular type. Does this 
record fulfil the criteria?

Best wishes,


George
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