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.
A searchable library of forgotten public-domain film clips from 1915 onward (movingimagearchive.com)
74 pointsby momentmaker2 days ago17 comments
paweladamczuk 3 hours ago
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.
moritzwarhier 2 hours ago
> is there a business model
the "business value" (aka legal extortion) is obviously to extract rent from information that was previously free (as in free speech), and that is not licensed.
I don't understand your comprehension problems.
However, I wouldn't categorically deny positive external effects. These are exotic, because or politics and economy are based on negative external effects, violence and corrruption.
However, there are positive "externalities" (a different word for the woo of pseudo-scientifical "economic theories, that is easy to overlook).
But in the end, the plausible results are simple. "Value" comes from
- natural resources - extortion, if there is no sufficient legal boundary - marginal improvements in improving extortion and extraction efficiency
See, I saved you an MBA there.
Forgeties79 41 minutes ago
>I don't understand your comprehension problems.
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.
shevy-java 29 minutes ago
That's an assumption on your part though. To me both prior comments
read rather clearly. And I don't see a problem with the content.
wildzzz 20 minutes ago
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.
akiselev 2 hours ago
Just found an amateur video of San Francisco from 1940: https://www.movingimagearchive.com/sources/amateur-film-san-...
And 1932! https://www.movingimagearchive.com/sources/san-francisco-by-...
eesmith an hour ago
SF in 1906, "Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire", at https://archive.org/details/TripDown1905 and better copy at http://www.archive.org/details/TripDownMarketStreetrBeforeTh... .
shevy-java 28 minutes ago
That is scary, how these strange ... cars try to sneak up on the hill-like streets in San Francisco.
tomalbrc 3 hours ago
This is a much worse version of destockd.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49689005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49599206
shevy-java 30 minutes ago
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.
USeyller 3 hours ago
Sounds rally cool. How and where are the movie clips collected, and how is it verified that they are in public domain?
mocheeze 3 hours ago
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.
Animats 3 hours ago
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.
[1] https://www.movingimagearchive.com/sources/general-aviation-...
mocheeze 3 hours ago
BTW they don't hide the source of the videos. Scrolling down on the video page links to the collection and source.
bryanrasmussen 3 hours ago
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.
pmdulaney 2 days ago
I don't see how to access the search function. All I see are example videos.
jolmg 4 hours ago
Right above the thumbnails is a search input. On the top right is also a link that says "Search" that takes you to it.