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In his April 24 op-ed, “Some bad news for movie lovers,” Ty Burr warned about the films lost to us and our shared cultural memory when we can no longer “rent” physical DVDs. These titles are, in fact, still quite available to us. Though it’s true that not one of the titles Mr. Burr referenced is available on commercial streaming platforms, they are readily available on DVD at academic and public libraries.
Academic libraries especially have a mandate to collect and provide access to our collective cultural output for contemporary and future access and study; these films will be around for a long time.
The danger lies squarely in the complete and utter control of access to new content that streaming companies now hold with the complete lockdown of content. Access is so heavily restricted that culturally groundbreaking films cannot be effectively used even for educational purposes in the classroom.
These new, culturally rich and significant films are content that libraries, both public and academic, cannot and will not be able to legally collect, preserve and make available. Our cultural heritage rests completely in the hands of for-profit businesses, and these companies have shown no hesitation to vanish films that are no longer profitable.
Perhaps what we need to collectively decide is which is scarier: having our cultural heritage managed, restricted and shaped by political forces; allowing our cultural heritage to be managed, restricted and shaped by capital enterprise; or both. Once we decide that, what are we going to do about it?
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