Quote:
Originally Posted by Pardoz
Doesn't matter how many people have copies if all those copies are stored on 8" floppies, magnetic tape, and punch cards  |
My point was that, once published into the "wild", although some copies will be lost, it is unlikely that someone won't have kept it. Works are unlikely to be lost to civilisation once published digitally.
Look at how the BBC have recovered a lot of their archives that they deleted (in order to re-use tapes that were expensive!) - because there were people who recorded and retained their broadcasts. That was long before VHS even. Nowadays, what are the odds that anything on Amazon (say) isn't stored by someone somewhere, even if all their servers (and back-ups, and the publishers' copies) go pop?
The author's assertion was that the digital world was more fragile and that the end of civilisation could be a click away - and I think that this is nonsense. Two keys turned in unison away, maybe, but not one click.