

The Story of Marion Stokes, Who Single-Handedly Taped 35 Years Of TV News - JoshGlazebrook
http://www.fastcompany.com/3022022/the-incredible-story-of-marion-stokes-who-single-handedly-taped-35-years-of-tv-news?nid=3022022

======
driverdan
I want to hear more about Stokes' story. She was a librarian but had the money
to own multiple apartments, buy 140k VHS tapes, and "192 Macintosh computers."
She sounds fascinating.

~~~
teod
There is a little more about her in her obituary.
[http://articles.philly.com/2012-12-21/news/35955478_1_televi...](http://articles.philly.com/2012-12-21/news/35955478_1_television-
show-philadelphia-chair-son)

------
jtchang
35 years ago Marion Stokes probably could have never imagined that her
collection would one day be instantly searchable and viewable by anyone with a
computer.

I imagine when she told her friends what she was doing it would be akin to
someone today saying they are trying to record everything on the internet.
Back then probably pretty crazy. Now? Maybe still crazy!

~~~
yen223
Tell that to the folks at the Library of Congress!
[http://www.businessinsider.com/library-of-congress-is-
archiv...](http://www.businessinsider.com/library-of-congress-is-archiving-
all-of-americas-tweets-2013-1)

------
ryanobjc
In theory this stuff is archived 'somewhere' but the realities of archived
video is such that often it is just not accessible. The library of congress is
supposed to have a copy of 'every' movie, and everything that is copyrighted,
but due to various cut-outs that just is not so.

~~~
dalke
"supposed to have a copy ... everything that is copyrighted"

Many things have a copyright restriction on reproduction. These happen
automatically upon creation. The LoC does not get a copy of these. (For
example, it doesn't get a copy of internal proprietary company documentation,
even though those are covered under copyright.)

There are additional legal advantages to registering a copyright. These are
part of the public record, and the LoC may have up to two copies of these
_registered_ documents.

However, it can decide to not keep any copies. Quoting from
[http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9709/acquire.html](http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9709/acquire.html):

The Library usually rejects individual company sales manuals, advertisements,
coloring books, elementary and high school textbooks (except in U.S. history),
instructors' manuals, student workbooks and self-published books except for
genealogies, local histories and other publications of special interest. ...
The Library collects materials in all subjects, except technical agriculture
and clinical medicine, which are kept by the National Agricultural Library and
the National Library of Medicine.

So, your text is more correctly written as "The Library of Congress may have
up to two copies of every movie or other thing with a registered copyright,
but due to various cut-outs that just is not so."

Thus, there's no reason to assume this stuff is archived _anywhere_.

~~~
rz2k
Is that internal proprietary company documentation considered just a trade
secret or a trade secret and also protected by copyright?

~~~
dalke
Copyright protection is automatic on any creative work. This is required of
all countries which are signatory to the Berne Convention, including the US.

If the documentation is non-creative then that would not be covered under
copyright but could still be a trade secret.

------
WalterBright
I had inadvertently taped some old local news broadcasts in the 80's, and
rewatching them is kinda fun.

Kudos to Marion for doing this, I think this archive will be regarded as
invaluable years from now.

------
wmf
I always thought recording all TV and indexing the captions would be a cool
project. The Google Books case may set a precedent to legalize such a project.

~~~
nswanberg
That is part of the internet archive's mission. There may be a newer and maybe
transcripted version of this talk, but it's a wonderful talk by Brewster Kahle
estimating the amount of space needed to store all of humanity's collected
output (including all broadcast TV):
[http://web.archive.org/web/20130729231218id_/http://itc.conv...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130729231218id_/http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail400.html)

(Cooincidentally it looks like archive.org has taken over hosting the now-
defunct itconversations podcasts.)

