
British Pathé Puts Over 85,000 Historical Films on YouTube  - jamesbritt
http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/free-british-pathe-puts-over-85000-historical-films-on-youtube.html
======
hf
An impressive collection to be sure. Slightly hyperbolical, the British Pathé
archive puts it thusly:

"This archive is a treasure trove unrivalled in historical and cultural
significance that should never be forgotten."[0]

However, I am left wondering why "[u]ploading the films to YouTube seemed like
the best way to make sure of that." Perhaps fittingly, there's no clear
indication which licence, if any, is applicable.

What could've possibly impeded a _parallel_ upload to the Internet Archive?

[0] [https://britishpathe.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/british-
pathe-...](https://britishpathe.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/british-pathe-
releases-85000-films-on-youtube/)

~~~
pessimizer
It's rivalled by [http://blog.flickr.net/en/2013/12/16/welcome-the-british-
lib...](http://blog.flickr.net/en/2013/12/16/welcome-the-british-library-to-
the-commons/)

And the same argument applies - why flickr? Or at least, why _only_ flickr?
Executives not willing to give up control is the answer. It's difficult for
people who generally make a living from renting access to the public to
imagine releasing something in a way that they couldn't revoke later. It's a
major break from that possessive thinking to even release the stuff to a third
party rather than commission some monstrous UI for their own site.

If you want it in the public domain, give it to archive.org or make torrents.
The public will do the uploading to youtube and flickr.

~~~
timthorn
The British Library doesn't rent its collections - it isn't a profit making
body.

~~~
greglindahl
The British Library charges extra if you want to reprint or republish pages
from their out-of-copyright books and manuscripts. They also assert new
copyrights when they photograph or microfilm things.

~~~
contingencies
Greg is right. I am writing a book on the history of the southwest corner of
modern China and saw an exhibition in the British Museum of British Library
held historical copperplate prints produced in France for a Chinese emperor in
the Ming Dynasty of his campaigns in the area (eg. the spectacular
tropical/karst landscape pacification of Annam, or modern day north Vietnam).
There are about 5 of these things I'm interested in, and the bastards wanted
~500GBP per image to photograph them for me for research purposes, with an
explicitly threatening legal statement that this would grant no republishing
rights. I mean, come on! Talk about holding the world's heritage hostage!

~~~
contingencies
PS. I believe they obtained the pieces by invading Beijing... on the then Qing
dynasty government's ever-so-serious provocation of refusing to issue free
trading rights to foreign nations, in England's case mostly to distribute vast
quantities of cut-rate opium produced in slave-like conditions by its Indian
subjects to the Chinese population.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War)

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gdewilde
Oh.. moar awesome than the patent database, most don't get that either...
innovation, technology etc (?)

Everything from Flying cars...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNp_iO-2Jfg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNp_iO-2Jfg)

...robotic car parks...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6-GxKtQ0e4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6-GxKtQ0e4)

.. the tarring of roads...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvFdo3tjFTY#t=2m36s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvFdo3tjFTY#t=2m36s)

To the imagination of science...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z0LprRG2FQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z0LprRG2FQ)

gravity powered generators..

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxIRaJlTD4Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxIRaJlTD4Y)

something called wind energy(?)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifOnhGsWMmk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifOnhGsWMmk)

and the miracle of democracy...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IamKE4AQUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IamKE4AQUQ)

~~~
joezydeco
I want to know more about this gravity generator...

 _" It has weights that spin round and multiply the power of an 1/8 horsepower
motor by 1200% - enough energy to power a town of 3,500 at a cost of £1 a
month"_

If it's not a wacky-looking flywheel, what was this guy's story? Something
close to a perpetual motion machine?

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Killah911
While watching footage of when Hitler came to power, I got a pop up on YouTube
to the effect of Obama wanting to take away guns & how I'd vote. It's nice
they put it up on YouTube so the masses can see this amazing footage (I saw
the Wright Brothers' flight for the first time there). But watching that ad
pop up just drove home the point that we just traded humans for pigs to run
our farm.

~~~
SixSigma
I use Privoxy on my devices consequently I am always surprised at the ad laden
internet other people have to use. I never see youtube ads at home. The worst
is when some classroom video demonstration (I'm a part time student, soon to
be full time) has to wait for an ad to complete / skip.

[http://www.privoxy.org/](http://www.privoxy.org/)

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v1tyaz
I don't understand the people commenting that YouTube is not a proper archival
tool. Obviously. They're not deleting their own copies of these films, they're
just making them available to the public in an easy to use manner. Criticism
of this is totally misguided.

~~~
pessimizer
>They're not deleting their own copies of these films

Are you under the impression that anyone thought they did?

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maga
I wish they were with the original commentaries that press used at the time
they first appeared. It would allow to see those "news" through the eyes of
contemporary viewers.

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ithkuil
Here's another historical film archive:
[http://europeanfilmgateway.eu/](http://europeanfilmgateway.eu/)

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taivare
The Virginia 1967 ,reminds me of my youth when we still had a demand side
economy and a thriving middle class.

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TuxLyn
Very impressive collection indeed. Now lets wait another 40 years for modern
1977-1990 collection ^_^

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samstave
.bash_aliases

dl-2-mp3() {

    
    
        #download and save a youtube video, and extract MP3 audio track
       
    
     youtube-dl -x -k --audio-format mp3 $1
    
    

}

alias ytdl=dl-2-mp3

~~~
bigbugbag
Saving anything in mp3 format when you have other options is dumb! mp3 is a
file format with awful limitations and has been obsoleted by better formats
for a good 10 years.

~~~
samstave
you can set the format to whatever you like... I was just sharing a helpful
alias I use for anything on Youtube - and given that all these vids were
uploaded, someone may want to use something like this to create a local
archive of some vids

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dublinben
It's too bad that this comes across as a marketing ploy. They're still
charging for licenses to actually _use_ any of this footage in any way. They
haven't actually released this material under a Creative Commons or Public
Domain license, so most of it is All Rights Reserved.

At least they don't have to pay for their own hosting now, to show off their
video archive!

~~~
geekam
For a history buff, having that collection for free is good enough.

~~~
bigbugbag
how exactly do you have this collection for free ?

You need to have internet access (youtube is a streaming website remember?)
and these are not free for some reason.

And each time you visit youtube you're making google money by way of
advertisement (and giving away some personal info), of which a portion can go
back to the uploader.

~~~
err4nt
Not sure if you're being pedantic.

If being pedantic, you also forgot to mention that using the internet requires
purchasing or generating your own electricity, plus the cost to buy or rent a
device with which to access the internet.

In case you weren't being pedantic, what the other commenter meant by 'free'
was most likely meant to be interpreted the same way as this ‘can be accessed
widely at no additional montary expense than simply loading the YouTube
homepage'

