On 26/10/07, Jim Lindner wrote:
I am sure I am missing something here - but if these are published recordings - that have been digitized by others or preserved by others because they are NOT unique - and available as access copies elsewhere (on the net or not) and the music is available elsewhere - and these particular recordings were not owned by someone famous - or have some artifactual value for some other strange reason - then the value of them other then to yourself as a thing you collect because you like to collect things is - - - what exactly?
The value of any 78 lies in the likelihood that better methods of transferring the sound to digital will be developed in the future, so it is worth while to preserve the originals.
I think we need to mentally get to the "emotional place" where not every pressing of every recording that is extant is considered valuable just because you happen to have it, particularly for published works. Once the recording is accessible at a high enough level of quality to suit most uses - and there is a preservation quality recording elsewhere - safe - the other copies have little incremental value for society as a practical matter. Two or three copies - just in case - ok. 400 in the hands of individual collectors - all the same. Sorry - but I dont see the value long term.
I know that this is heresy on this list - but if nothing else it may get some interesting discussion......
at some point we need to be clear that these are NOT masters - have NO artifactual value - are not unique - and so have very small value - and high cost to keep for reasons that are at best very unclear.
The number of copies of a disc is always diminishing. It's surprising how quickly a disc (or a book) can go down to a handful of surviving copies.
Regards