From Film Restoration to Digital Emulation: The Archival Code of Ethics in the Age of Digital Reproduction

Walter Benjamin laments the loss of the "aura" of the original work of art in his 1936 essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (Benjamin, 1969). Artist Douglas Davis revisits Benjamin's premise in his essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction," suggesting that the mutability of the original has spawned a new era of creativity (Davis, 1995). As digital records quickly replace analog records, archivists are facing new challenges in preserving, describing, and providing continuing access to these new forms of digital multi-media. Traditional archival theory has centered around paper-based records for which archives have physical custody. These records are produced on a stable, human-readable medium. Digital records, however, are technologically dependent, unreadable to the human eye, and do not exist in a physical form. The preservation of these complicated records requires a rethinking of theory and practice and presents ethical challenges for which current codes of ethics provide little guidance.Moving image and other audiovisual archivists have faced many of these same challenges posed by digital documents through their work with analog media. The myriad formats incorporated under the umbrella term "audiovisual media" are also plagued by obsolescence and technological dependence. In addition, as analog formats become obsolete and information must be migrated and reformatted, archivists face a number of ethical decisions similar to those faced by archives preserving digital records.Currently, the Society of American Archivists (SAA) and other similar organizations provide little guidance for archivists working with audiovisual records. For this reason, the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) has been working to develop its own code of ethics to establish a stronger professional identity within the archival profession. The organization provides important resources including The Moving Image, a journal "dedicated to the crucial issues surrounding the preservation, archiving, and restoration of film, video, and digital moving images" (Association of Moving Image Archivists, n.d). The International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) also provides important resources, including The Journal of Film Preservation, and ethical guidelines for moving image archivists. A number of film history and theory journals (Film History, The Velvet Light Trap, and Cinema Journal) also offer outlets for audiovisual archivists to publish their research. Increasingly, audiovisual archivists must look outside the mainstream archival literature, which focuses on text-based records.On an Archival EdgeFilm has historically been marginalized as a distinct and separate medium in archives and other collecting institutions. Examples of this notion can be found at the beginnings of film history. To obtain copyright for their works, early filmmakers were required to submit paper-prints, copies of their films printed on rolls of photographic paper, to the Library of Congress. Today, many archives house film and other audiovisual media in their collection, but still regard these documents as distinct from textual records. A quote from the journal of an early advocate of film archives, still holds true today: "the film was neither a print nor a book, nor-in-fact, everybody could say what it was not; but nobody could say what it was" (Bottomore, 1995, p. 293). As a result of this marginalization, few archives have the ability to properly store, describe, and provide access to audiovisual media.In her discussion of appraisal, Nancy Marrellini summarizes the attitude toward archival audiovisual materials:... I save it all.... I don't have the equipment and resources right now-but one day I will and I'll deal with it then.... Some of the stuff might be really important to someone some day-and they'll pay big bucks for using it. The cost of reformatting is too steep for us. I'll just leave it all on the shelf for now and reformat the things that people request. …