Lost media is any type ofmedia thought to no longer exist in any format, or for which nocopies can be located, partial or otherwise. The term primarily encompasses visual, audio, oraudiovisual media, such asfilms,television,radio broadcasts,music,[2] andvideo games.[3][4]
Many television and radio broadcast masters, recorded onto magnetic tape, may be lost due to the industry practice ofwiping. Motion picture studios also often destroyed their originalnitrate film elements, as film and broadcast material was often considered ephemeral and of little historical worth after they had made their revenue. Some media considered lost may exist in studio or public archives, but may not be available to most people due to copyright or donor restriction rules, or for the most part, complete disinterest by anyone in an outdated program or subject matter.[5] Due to the unstable nature of any format, films, tapes,phonograph records,optical discs likeCDs,Blu-ray discs, andDVDs, and digital data stored on devices such asUSB flash drives,SD cards,solid-state drives, andhard disk drives, all naturally degrade over time, especially if not kept in correct storage conditions.
Preservation efforts attempt to avoid the loss of works; this is usually done by storing them inarchives.
A large portion ofsilent films made in the United States are now considered lost.[6] A 2013 report made by the United StatesLibrary of Congress estimates that 70 percent of silent films made in the United States have been completely lost.[7]
Most lost television broadcasts are early television programs which cannot be accounted for in studio archives or in personal archives. A majority of lost television broadcasts are lost due to deliberate destruction (such as a technique used in the early days of television calledwiping) or neglect.[8][9]
The Library of Congress estimates that a large portion of the earliest musical recordings, from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, have been lost. For example, only two percent of the over 3000wax cylinders produced by theNorth American Phonograph Company between 1889 and 1894 are part of theNational Recording Preservation Board's sound recording library as of 2024[update].[10]
A concept related to lost music is "lostwave", a term coined on the Internet for extant recordings of music for which little to no information about its authors or origin exists. Some examples of lostwave, such as "Subways of Your Mind" and "Ulterior Motives", both of which were eventually identified in 2024, have been the subjects of online crowdsourced research.[11][12][13]
Video games, including digital downloads, often fade from existence when digital game stores close, as demonstrated by theWii Shop Channel,Xbox Live Arcade, V Cast Network, and theNintendo eShop.P.T., a teaser to the unreleasedSilent Hill gameSilent Hills, became unable to be redownloaded after its removal from thePlayStation Network within a year.[14] The Wii U and Nintendo 3DS digital download gamesDodge Club Party andDodge Club Pocket were removed from Nintendo eShop in 2019 and 2022 and became publicly unavailable due to reasons beyond Nintendo's control.[15]
According to theVideo Game History Foundation, 87% of American video games released before 2010 are out of print and cannot be acquired outside of thegrey market orpiracy. Many of these titles are in danger of becoming lost, or already are.[16] Some video game enthusiasts argue that out of respect for both the original designers and the fans of the game, video game publishers have a duty to make sure that the game remains accessible.[17] Some enthusiasts believe that when the publishers don't, the consumers are justified inpirating the game, as they are left with no other alternative in the absence of proper methods of purchase which would benefit the publishers or creators of the game. In other words, they claim that piracy is okay in that context because it doesn't harm the publishers/creators of the game, i.e. if the publisher wants to benefit from the sale of the game, then they need to ensure it remains available for sale.
Video gamepreservationists, including both organizations such as theVideo Game History Foundation and hobbyists seek to preserve video game history that would have otherwise been lost to time due to a variety of factors, such asdegrading storage mediums, digital game stores closing, or the game becoming unavailable because of licensing or financial issues. Their motivations are that the games hold cultural and historical value,[18] can be educational material for the future (such as learning to code by imitating a classic game from scratch or learning about past peoples' lives[18]), or that they simply hold emotional value through nostalgia.
Data stored in electronic computers risks being lost if it is not frequentlymigrated into more recentfile formats. This happens because as new computer systems are developed and new technologies are built, now obsolete systems may break down over time, leaving the data inside inaccessible.[19] Electronic data preservation is further complicated by the fact that unless anemulator for a given computer system which can decode the data is present at the time of the preservation, the original data may become inaccessible as the original hardware breaks down, as it may depend on the originalhardware to be decoded,[20] although in some cases the original data may be recoverable through lengthyreverse engineering work with the objective of understanding the original computer system enough to decode the most original electronic data possible.[21]
To mitigate the loss of their data, theArctic World Archive has been the chosen location for the preservation of the code on public repositories onGitHub.[22] The Arctic World Archive also stores a wide range of data of interest to multiple companies, institutions and governments; including the Constitutions of Brazil and Norway.[23]
Media released on the internet, such asfile sharing,livestreams andblog posts, are especially vulnerable to loss.[24][25][26] Media released solely tostreaming services without a physical release is sometimes withdrawn from further distribution, leaving no means to obtain the media outside ofpiracy. TheElectronic Frontier Foundation describes it as "a whole new kind of lost media [that's] only going to be preserved by those individuals who did the work to make and save copies of it, often risking draconian legal liability, regardless of how the studio feels about that work".[27][28][29]
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