Content on Cloud Video Services Produced by the Service Provider

Video materials - films and television programs – that are produced by companies that maintain their own distribution platforms and are exclusively available through these platforms.

Group: Sound and Vision

Trend in 2021:

Consensus Decision

Added to List: 2019

Previous classification: Vulnerable

Trend in 2022:

Imminence of Action

Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment within one year.

Significance of Loss

The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on people and sectors around the world.

Effort to Preserve

It would require a major effort to preserve materials in this group, including the development of new tools or techniques.

Examples

Netflix, Amazon Prime

‘’Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions

Lack of corporate preservation planning; lack of preservation capability; conflating backup with preservation; loss of original recordings; lack of preservation voice at executive level; poor planning and roadmap for infrastructure; slapdash procurement or migration to new systems; mergers and acquisitions; profusion of corporate systems; complex intellectual property rights; single point of failure; technical protection measures that inhibit reasonable preservation actions.

‘Vulnerable’ in the Presence of Good Practice

backup and documentation; use of open formats and open source software; data management planning; licencing that enables preservation; corporate preservation capability; resilient to hacking; authenticity and integrity managed; recognition of preservation functions at executive level; technology watch; preservation audits; participation in preservation community.

2021 Jury Review

This entry was added in 2019 to represent collections that are highly significant in cultural and social terms. It was adopted as the Jury was unclear whether the content could be played outside of the producers’ publication platform. This introduces technical dependencies between content and software, which are amplified by rights management.
The 2021 Jury agreed with the Endangered classification but discussed how the growth of content produced with no or limited preservation mandate has led to greater risk.

Additional Comments

The 2022 Taskforce welcomes the news that BFI will take responsibility for the preservation of key titles from Netflix. This represents a commitment to act on previous recommendations but is not yet a ‘material improvement’ at this stage so there has not been a change to the 2022 trend explicitly. The agreement between Netflix and BFI was announced just as the Taskforce was completing its work, and when complete it will represent only a small proportion of the total content within scope. Nonetheless this is an exciting development, holding significant promise as an example of an emerging partnership between content creator and a digital preservation facility. It is our firm hope that the work is brought to a swift and successful conclusion, and moreover that it becomes an example which can be followed by others in due course. See: https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/bridgerton-top-boy-heartstopper-bfi-national-archive-netflix

This entry has five aspects. 1. It falls outside the scope of traditional regulatory frameworks and archiving has not yet been included in any legislative framework, unlike broadcast TV, where there is a designated archive in most developed nations. 2. As a result, the collecting and preservation of the content from online platforms is underdeveloped, and the content remains unavailable in public archives. 3. These risks are mitigated by the fact that the commercial archives are technologically advanced, with mature digital ecosystems and skills, and much of the content has a 'long tail' business model, and as commercial products have value, so preservation incentives are clear. 4. However, these are often stored at scale on LTO tapes, and so specific issues arise with the obsolescence of LTO tape technologies for the broadcast sector. 5. Nonetheless, issues remain around archiving relevant assets which may not be valued by the production company.

It may also be worth considering broadening legal deposit legislation so there is a mandate to deposit this content with an appropriate repository - though the volume may be unwelcome as many institutions are under resourced.