This is really lovely. I think it's pretty obvious that it bases on sources like Internet Archive and the Library of Congress, but it does add value.
I just wonder if it can survive - is there a business model here? If not, it's just a tech demo and then it doesn't have value as the hosted version, it would have it if the whole processing/indexing pipeline was open sourced so that anyone can host it themselves and pay for their own infrastructure.
Someone has to pay the hosting costs. I don't see an issue with asking for a nominal fee for access to a curated library (there is a lot of useless garbage in the public domain). Of course, anyone can do as they please with public domain media once they've accessed it, even building their own hosting site so it's not exactly a real money making idea.
A good start would be to create a legal framework that prevents good and ambitious ideas from turning into nefarious rent-seeking schemes.
Already quite an unwieldy task, because without regulation, rent-seeking, extortion and negative value via enshittification, even plain theft and crime, will always be privileged.
The people who do this and "earn" the money usually hardly understand the product idea, they're just inclined to extract the maximum amount of money from original inventors, educated engineers etc, but generally, people with stronger predatory business instincts and no domain knowledge or talent.
And this economical incentive for cryptic fraud exists independent from any political camp; assuming you are brainwashed enough to equate "liberal" and "left-wing".
Back to business:
without scavenging instincts that turn good ideas into bad, predatory and endhittified crapware, capitalism wouldn't work: at least not for people without any skills exceeding (self-)marketing
People who are best at beint predators providing negative value are the most privileged and pampered members of the workforce, because everyone knows in secret that GDP growth doesn't derive from skills or value, its origin is brute power.
> "Value" comes from
- natural resources - extortion, if there is no sufficient legal boundary - marginal improvements in improving extortion and extraction efficiency
That is false on its face. You tacitly admit it by implying that the public domain clips have value. Where'd that value come from? Natural resources or extortion? Or neither?
Providing a service is not extracting rent. First of all, hosting these clips is in no way taking ownership of them. To extract rent on something you must first own it, that is, deny others usage of it. How's that possible when it comes to public domain?
Secondly, taking a fee in order to pay for the upkeep of something, including the labor you yourself provide, is not extracting rent. That term only applies to when you take a fee that's not coupled to any labor, but only to ownership.
If you are feeling inspired by the project to edit a found footage awesome thing, here's https://mobygratis.com - an amazing gift to filmmakers and a pretty snazzy listening experience for (semi-)library music.
This looks like a collection of clips from the Internet Archive. "General Aviation - Fact or Fiction" is on the Moving Image Archive at [1], and the full version is in the Internet Archive at [2]. Most of the content is from the Internet Archive. What's the point?
At least they don't slap their logo on public domain material, like Periscope Films does.
Depending on how they serve these clips (do they save them locally etc.) the point could be to take load off the internet archive.
The other point might be to provide better search capabilities than IA, also taking load off. Sometimes verifying something actually is Public Domain on IA can be work in itself, putting more work on a primary resource. In short it seems to me these people are doing a good thing.
Many of these are sourced from the US Government, which means public domain. They also have links to the sources below so you can verify source and copyright.
Page loads way too slowly IMO. Even the youtube page loads somewhat
slowly, but it is about 10x faster than that webpage. There is no
need for these fancypants animations really. I am not going to wait
for slow animations to finish.
I just wonder if it can survive - is there a business model here? If not, it's just a tech demo and then it doesn't have value as the hosted version, it would have it if the whole processing/indexing pipeline was open sourced so that anyone can host it themselves and pay for their own infrastructure.
Already quite an unwieldy task, because without regulation, rent-seeking, extortion and negative value via enshittification, even plain theft and crime, will always be privileged.
The people who do this and "earn" the money usually hardly understand the product idea, they're just inclined to extract the maximum amount of money from original inventors, educated engineers etc, but generally, people with stronger predatory business instincts and no domain knowledge or talent.
And this economical incentive for cryptic fraud exists independent from any political camp; assuming you are brainwashed enough to equate "liberal" and "left-wing".
Back to business:
without scavenging instincts that turn good ideas into bad, predatory and endhittified crapware, capitalism wouldn't work: at least not for people without any skills exceeding (self-)marketing
People who are best at beint predators providing negative value are the most privileged and pampered members of the workforce, because everyone knows in secret that GDP growth doesn't derive from skills or value, its origin is brute power.
You can make your point but you can’t and shouldn’t talk to people like this here. Especially when it’s clearly so unwarranted.
That is false on its face. You tacitly admit it by implying that the public domain clips have value. Where'd that value come from? Natural resources or extortion? Or neither?
Providing a service is not extracting rent. First of all, hosting these clips is in no way taking ownership of them. To extract rent on something you must first own it, that is, deny others usage of it. How's that possible when it comes to public domain?
Secondly, taking a fee in order to pay for the upkeep of something, including the labor you yourself provide, is not extracting rent. That term only applies to when you take a fee that's not coupled to any labor, but only to ownership.
https://www.destockd.com/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49689005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49599206
At least they don't slap their logo on public domain material, like Periscope Films does.
[1] https://www.movingimagearchive.com/sources/general-aviation-...
[2] https://archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava12749vnb
The other point might be to provide better search capabilities than IA, also taking load off. Sometimes verifying something actually is Public Domain on IA can be work in itself, putting more work on a primary resource. In short it seems to me these people are doing a good thing.
And 1932! https://www.movingimagearchive.com/sources/san-francisco-by-...