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Back in March of 2006, I interviewed Alan Cote, the Supervisor of Public Records in the Public Records Division of the Massachusetts Secretary’s office. Alan had testified back in October of 2005 in the hearing where Peter Quinn, the Massachusetts State CIO, had been called on the carpet to defend his choice of the OASIS ODF standard over the XML formats proprietary to, and being pushed on Massachusetts by, Microsoft. At the hearing, Alan had professed neutrality about ODF, but also doubts that document formats could provide a useful tool for document preservation.

What struck me most forcefully at both the hearing as well as the interview was that Alan presumably should have been one of the biggest proponents of open formats, rather than a doubting Thomas. Why? Because the process he now follows to preserve electronic documents seems almost comically cumbersome and tedious. Briefly summarized, it involves recopying every single electronic document every five years or so onto new media (electronic media degrade surprisingly rapidly) in multiple formats (because formats are regularly abandoned). Shouldn’t someone stuck with such a chore be desperate to find a better way?

Apparently, preserving documents is child’s play compared to preserving modern movies, especially those created initially in digital form. How bad - and expensive - is that? According to a 74 page study released by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAD) to a limited audience in early November, preserving a full-length digital movie can cost $208,569 (dramatic pause) per year. The reasons are exactly the same as for digitized documents, and the currently available means of preservation are the same as well. The amount of data involved, however, is vastly greater - and no commitment to remain faithful to a single standard (yet) exists to ensure that future technologies will be able to display movies created using today’s techniques.

The name of the report is aptly called “The Digital Dilemma.” An article based on the report appeared in early November in The Hollywood Reporter, and a longer article is in last Sunday’s New York Times.

For the rest of the story, click here.

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Comments

• Andy Updegrove

  

  Andy Updegrove is a partner and founder of Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a Boston-based technology law firm, and has represented and helped structure more than 80 worldwide standard setting, open source, promotional and advocacy consortia over the past 20 years. He has also represented hundreds of both emerging as well as established technology companies, and is the founder and editor of both the popular website http://www.consortiuminfo.org and the widely-read Standards Blog

• Karen Copenhaver

  

  Karen Copenhaver is a partner in Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP ‘s Business & Technology practice focusing on technology transfer and licensing of intellectual property with a specific emphasis on open source business models. Most recently, Copenhaver was executive vice president and general counsel at Black Duck Software, Inc.