As Largest Archive Of K-Pop Live Streams Goes Offline, What Happens To All That Culture?

from the disappearing-culture dept

When people speak of culture, and preserving it, they usually mean the works of recognized artistic giants like Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charlie Chaplin, and Miles Davis. They rarely mean things like live streams of Korean pop music, generally known as K-pop. And yet K-pop is undoubtedly an expression – some would say a particularly vibrant expression – of a characteristic modern culture. It is also subject to copyright, which brings with it problems, as this story on Mashable reveals:

On Monday, Oct. 31, South Korean live streaming app V Live notified users that it’d be shutting down on Dec. 31, 2022. The closure isn’t a surprise — in March, HYBE, owner of the competing app Weverse, announced it had acquired V Live and intended to close the app — but it is a bummer for artists and fans. V Live is the largest-ever archive of live-streamed K-pop content. Where will that content live on when the app goes dark?

Owned by Naver, V Live launched in 2015 as a tool for Korean artists to connect with fans. They did that primarily through live streams, which were then saved in the app as on-demand videos. As K-pop exploded in global popularity, V Live connected these entertainers with an international audience who watched them eat meals, celebrate birthdays, and produce music in real time.

V Live is therefore a great example of how artists can use the latest technology to forge closer relationships with their fans around the world – something that Walled Culture has been advocating as a key element of finding new ways to fund creativity.

According to the Mashable article, some of the recordings will be moved to Weverse’s own platform. Specifically, recordings of artists who join Weverse before V Live is shut down. Weverse has also said that artists can download their V Live archives in order to upload them elsewhere. That’s all well and good, but it still leaves many musicians facing the possibility of their streams disappearing forever, because they are unable to move them to new sites for whatever reason.

One issue in this story is the concentration of power in this sector, a typical problem that bedevils most of the copyright world, as I discuss in Walled Culture, the book. The main problem, though, is copyright itself. In a sane world, relevant cultural organisations would be able to download all of the streams on the V Live site as a matter of routine in order to preserve them for posterity, as important cultural artefacts of the K-pop world. Copyright naturally forbids that, seeing preservation as infringement. As a result, K-pop culture is likely to lose some of its characteristic moments, for no good reason, and to no one’s benefit.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, or Mastodon. Reposted from the Walled Culture blog.

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Companies: naver, weverse

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Comments on “As Largest Archive Of K-Pop Live Streams Goes Offline, What Happens To All That Culture?”

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115 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Reading the original article, it doesn’t have much to do with copyright – but Glyn’s point does stand. Any sort of attempt to archive all footage on V Live is likely going to run into copyright issues. Particularly from apologists, who have a long history of making terop-level arguments, claiming that destruction of footage should be something desirable – like if there’s something embarrassing a random streamer wants buried.

The one upside is that for the most part, Korea hasn’t been featured often on Techdirt for copyright stupidity. There’s probably at least one enterprising group of fans who will spend the next month or so archiving everything about their favorite artists, and teaching everybody else to do the same, several times over.

Crafty Coyote says:

Re:

Which is why we should all endeavor to save any records of culture we come across. The same idiots who believe that “you wouldn’t steal a car” fail to recognize that some people would commit crimes to save the images, music, and art they like, with no hope of making profit and the risk of being thrown in prison.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re:

What you have to remember is that “culture” to these people means “whatever we can sell for the most profit”. They’re happy to destroy any culture that doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it, including FOSS and the public domain. If they were able to destroy every copy of a movie, song, book or anything else not created within the last 5 years or whatever is highest on their balance sheet, they’d do so in a heartbeat, and there would be no such thing as independent creativity.

Crafty Coyote says:

Re: Re: Re: Be Courageous

And that is why we must continue to be strong and publish these cultural artifacts, even if it costs us money or our freedom. And publish enough, encourage other innocent to publish, and preserve as much as we can. If I, or anyone else gets accused or convicted of theft, it’s a sacrifice we have to make

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

Realistically, it’s likely that very few people today will fondly look back on musical acts of the past. There will be those of older generations who remember them, possibly some younger folk who recognize the names, but it’s unlikely that Elvis Presley or the Beatles will be as famous today as they were during their heyday.

But that’s the thing about copyright trolls like Sabroni. You’ll never hear them talk about music from the past, whether it’s the 1960s or the 1760s, unless someone’s sued over a performance. Then they’ll come crawling out of the woodwork, demanding that everyone pay money and respects to copyright just so corpses can be incentivized into making more content. It’s Schrodinger’s copyright law.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

Even less remember what was popular when Elvis and the Beatles were hot stuff.

Survivorship bias is a real thing, and no one remembers the legacy of Seabiscuit or Bing Crosby.

Then again, maximalists do want to erase anything they have no control of, like a racehorse that was, for one brief moment in WW2, more popular than Hitler…

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

It takes a genius to clump everything in one pile :p

Classical music shows how e-fads faded fast into oblivion. Not all music moves the soul. And lyrics are specific to moods, culture or environment (as stated in another comment).

It has already been proven that notes can move emotions on their own.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Not all music moves the soul.

Correction: Not all music moves your soul. Your opinion of K-pop is not an objective barometer of the worthiness of K-pop in re: cultural preservation. If you think it is, by all means: Thoroughly explain your reasoning.

Then explain why I can’t use your reasoning to trash your favorite songs, artists, and genres in the same way you’re trashing K-pop.

Go ahead and dig that hole, son. I’ll wait.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2

You seem to have conniptions over nothing.

The comment indicated that music without lyrics can induce pleasure. Plop culture is funny though.

To quote an infamous poet “Op, op, op, op, Oppa Gangnam Style”

Commit that classic to memory so you don’t forget how good it was (aka fad) :p

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

Plop culture is funny though.

It isn’t, though. Anything can be pop culture; that you demean something other people may like but you don’t by conjuring up the image of someone defecating doesn’t make you funny⁠—it makes you a hack who has to attack things you don’t like to get even the cheapest of laughs. A video of a dog farting would be funnier than you.

Commit that classic to memory so you don’t forget how good it was (aka fad)

I don’t fucking care if K-pop is a “fad”. It still deserves to be preserved as an artifact of and contribution to Korean/global culture. That you don’t like it doesn’t make you anything close to the one and only arbiter of what is or isn’t “deserving” of cultural preservation. Manos: The Hands of Fate is an objectively awful film and someone still dedicated time and money to preserving it; who the absolute flying ratfuck would you be to say they’re wrong or awful for doing that as if your subjective opinion is the unquestionable word of God?

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

Don’t blow a fuse with all that plop trivia no-ledge

It isn’t “pop trivia knowledge” to think even the worst quality works deserve preservation. (Also: If you’re going to insult me, you need to put in the goddamn work. Worse people than you have said far worse things about me, and that’s before getting into my own negative self-talk.)

I don’t care if K-pop is “low quality” music to some people. I don’t care if the lowest-grossing movie of any given year is “low quality” to someone. It all deserves preservation. All of our culture⁠—at any level⁠—deserves preservation regardless of our subjective opinions about any or all of it. You haven’t given me Reason Goddamn One why it shouldn’t.

But hey, if you want to keep provoking me, that’s your fucking business. God knows why you’d want to do it other than being a bigger fuckin’ waste of time and space than me, but you’re welcome to that position if you want it, Mr. Shit on the Brain.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

“To quote an infamous poet “Op, op, op, op, Oppa Gangnam Style”

I’ll take a wild guess that you don’t understand the intent of the words you just misquoted. Hint: it wasn’t nonsense, the song is a mocking satire of a certain subculture in the Gangnam area of Seoul, something that’s easier to grasp if you speak Korean apparently since there’s way more than one lyric to that song, but it’s well illustrated in the video.

I’m not a huge fan of K-Pop, but I’m going to guess that I can find way more vapid nonsense in whatever you consider to be higher art.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9

Declaring a form of music to be shit and thus undeserving of preservation is not a “casual conversation”⁠—it’s the first step in deciding exactly what culture is or isn’t worthy of preservation and why. And I hate to Godwin this conversation via cultural reference, but the kind of people who think some cultural works need destroying tend to be the kind of goose-stepping morons who should be reading books instead of burning them.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11

is chump change to archive anything

To someone with a fair bit of wealth? Absolutely. To the regular jackoff? Not a chance in hell.

Archiving isn’t just about saving a copy. It’s about preserving that copy⁠—about multiple redundant backups (including off-site backups if possible), guarding against bitrot, and ensuring the long-term viability of multiple storage devices. On a long enough timeline, the costs will become larger than the average person can afford to pay. That’s why organizations like the Internet Archive aren’t a one-person affair and don’t rely on a small collection of portable hard drives bought at a local Walmart.

I get that you don’t want anything but the highest of high-brow culture preserved. Maybe you think pop culture is…oh, let’s say “too decadent”. But for the people who do want to preserve it⁠—and I can guarantee that said group outnumbers you and whatever holier-than-thou dipshits you can find to back your “burn all the shitty music” crusade⁠—doing that work isn’t as easy as you think. The same also goes for all that high-brow culture you want to parade about as being the superior ra⁠—I mean, the superior culture. Preservation of any culture goes beyond the mere saving of a single copy; if you’re going to disrespect the lowest of the low, you best be prepared for people to disrespect the highest of the high in return.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:12

If you read the article, does it really sound like garbage in, garbage out?

“V Live connected these entertainers with an international audience who watched them eat meals, celebrate birthdays, and produce music in real time.”

Perhaps the live jams are something, but ratios matter in the real world… Save the whales and their poop is someone elses baggage (the report of 477 beached whales shows how well that slogan is going too).

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:13

does it really sound like garbage in, garbage out?

One person’s opinion on the quality of a piece of culture is wholly and utterly irrelevant to whether that piece of culture deserves preservation. But by all means, go ahead and explain why you should be the one and only Word-Of-God arbiter on what culture deserves preservation and what culture deserves to burn.

I’ll wait.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:14

The article explains any blab about arbiter of someone elses trash.

They indicated V live was purchased and shuttered an online diary. You should have purchased V live and hostedtheir diary entries that are typical social media fodder.

Did you save geocities? Yahoo groups? Local newspapers? All that culture down the drain (hows that toilet water old man?).

Things come and go. There it goes (where there are losers, there are winners is a classic quote) :p

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:15

Two things.

  1. It isn’t my job to preserve all culture; if it were, I’d be doing the kinds of things that would preserve as much culture as I could, much like the GeoCities archivers did before that service shut down.
  2. If you have a problem with “old men” like me, do something violent about it. You’re already eager to burn culture; how much longer will it really be until you’re willing to burn people as well?
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16

The old man learned to soothe say from illiterates. Lol.. Its k-pop and plop culture.

Only you are using inferior language old man.

As quoted “Go ahead and dig that hole, son. I’ll wait.”

I recommend you hold your breath and we can laugh about “blue nun” prank calls 🙂

A sip of toioet water a day keeps the normal people away :p

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:18

Lol. You could learn to read.. I think RTFA is appropriate.

“V Live connected these entertainers with an international audience who watched them eat meals, celebrate birthdays, and produce music in real time.”

I even quoted “It takes a genius to clump everything in one pile :p”

Did you notice that classical music was archived and kept alive for people to enjoy in 2022? Glum and dump is your problem :p

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:20

You seem to be unwilling to accept the fact that preserving art has already been invented. Digital changes nothing and it was highlighted that storage is inexpensive (a petabyte of storage used to be cost prohibitive.. That is no longer the case).

May I recommend listening to the “minute waltz” this evening and see if it brings a smile to your face knowing it was written while observing a dog chasing its tail (there arenreally good renditions with dexterity that sound amazing).

I did not comment on Paul’s comments about Psy because that was a dance track.. Its not even on my top 10 list of genres.

Even just notes can move the soul 😉

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:21

You seem to be unwilling to accept the fact that preserving art has already been invented.

No, I accept that it’s been invented. What you seem unwilling/unable to accept is that preservation goes beyond saving one copy far more often than not⁠—and that true preservation can often be far more costly than buying a portable hard drive from Walmart.

May I recommend

If I ever wanted your recommendations on anything, I’d take a long look in the mirror and think about where the fuck I went wrong with my life.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:22

I get the best emotions from bitter people arguing about the virtues of sipping toilet water while being ignorant that someone would either play a recording or add a cover into a setlist/performance for k-pop to endure. The turnip/cabbage truck went that way old man ——-> :p

And the minute waltz is there for anyone to enjoy 🙂

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:23

I get the best emotions from bitter people arguing about the virtues of sipping toilet water

That you get any joy out of evoking negative emotions from people is…telling.

And I’m not here to argue about any virtues of any content. Hell, if I think the content mentioned in the article is vapid bullshit, I’m not going to say otherwise. But my opinion about that content is not, IN ANY WAY, an objective reason to let that content disappear. Someone else might think it important enough to save; who the fuck am I to say otherwise?

Therein lies your problem: You’d be more than happy to censor any goddamn thing you think is “lesser” culture⁠—and I’d be more than happy to assume you’re all about censoring “lesser” culture from societies/countries you also consider “lesser”. Me? I’ve got a different problem: I’m willing to fight for the idea that all culture, no matter its quality or cultural significance or source, is worth preserving.

You want to burn culture. I want to save it. Combined with your sociopathic attempts to force me to keep posting here because you enjoy the pain and suffering and misery of others, you don’t have a moral leg to stand on in this fight, you goose-stepping son of a bitch.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:25

Using classical music as a well proven example of preserving art/music/history is good enough for me.

Why isn’t other music worth preserving? Why isn’t content related to the musicians who make that other music worth preserving? Why does it have to burn because it’s not “good enough” for you think it’s worth saving?

Are you sure you are not laughing

I don’t laugh at bad jokes, especially ones told repeatedly as if they’re supposed to get funnier that way (they don’t). I sure as shit don’t laugh about people supporting censorship because they think a certain kind of culture⁠—either by quality or by source⁠—is “lesser” than their favored culture. You might think burning some foreign nation’s culture is funny, but that would only make you a sociopathic fascist who gets off on causing pain and misery.

I’m not going to suddenly be on your side and call for the censorship or deletion of content because it’s “bad”. Shit, son, I was on the side of the guy who restored Manos: The Hands of Fate⁠—one of the objectively worst films ever made⁠—so thinking a few poop jokes and some trash talking about Korean pop culture is going to make me change my mind is idiocy bordering on lunacy.

I won’t get tired of railing against the kind of censorship you would most likely support. You might think it funny that I’m this passionate about the subject and keep posting these kinds of replies⁠—but censorship isn’t a laughing matter, and you’re not going to make me laugh at (or support) your wanting to burn Korean culture.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:26

I keep laughing that you have to make up glum and dumb to fake relevant. Neither you or I has prevented any of those folks on V live the opportunity to archive their own drivle.

Do you understand what I just said?

Take another sip of toilet water from plop culture… Oh what a relief it is 🙂

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:27

Neither you or I has prevented any of those folks on V live the opportunity to archive their own drivle.

And yet, you’re still on here whining about how it’s “lesser” culture than classical music. That shit tells me you’re not just happy about that culture going away, but that you’re more than happy to support the censorship and eradication of other culture you think is “lesser” than your own favored culture. And since this is Korean culture we’re specifically talking about…well, that doesn’t paint in a good light.

Do you understand what I just said?

Yes.

Do you understand the implications of thinking part of a certain country’s culture is “inferior” to some other culture you think is “superior”, and how advocating for a lack of preservation of what you deem “inferior” culture makes you seem like a censorship-supporting asshole?

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:28

You have not pursuaded me that “watched them eat meals, celebrate birthdays, and produce music in real time” is not plop culture. Typical social media fodder.

Are you still holding your breathe?

Music is not new. You can go back decades and see that some music is cherished more than others. Even simple resolutions to archiving are readily known in 2022. Garbage in, garbage out 🙂

I just read that some sippy cups were recalled for lead poisoning concerns… Be sure to check your sippy cups :p

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:29

Music is not new. You can go back decades and see that some music is cherished more than others.

So what? That doesn’t make the less-cherished music any less deserving of preservation.

I just read that some sippy cups were recalled for lead poisoning concerns

If’n you wanna put a bullet through my head, just say so and be done with it.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:24

I believe the gist of the comments were regarding the quality of content on V live while someone vainly attempted to qualify the site/app as some kind of cultural artifact.

The link provided to a random “artist” showed the validity of the arguements to a satisfactory level.

I believe the statement of “digging a hole” with the virtuous slang of “son” was promptly addressed.

Indeed, garbage in, garbage out remedied the conversation amicably 🙂

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:26

What question?

The one about V live being shuttered because it did not have value for the entity that purchased it?

It looks like the comments were trying to point out that any culture that doesn’t archive their own culture becomes a digital relic nobody will ever see. Its easy to see how a case-by-case basis keeps it real.

Just because its on the Internet doesn’t make it worth saving.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:11

Yeah…. Its still a storage device on the retail market, not limited to individuals. Thats such a complicated concept.

Preservation is about more than buying a hard drive, but I doubt you know or care.

I am curious, though: Do you want K-pop destroyed because it’s pop music or because it’s Korean music?

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:13

It sure seems to be your problem, given your continual use of what I’m sure you thought was a clever little phrasing. (Cleverness never gets funnier with time or repetition, by the by.) But if I could pull a Thanos Snap and wipe from existence any- and everything deemed pop culture, I’d give you the blame for inspiring the idea when the world came to collect my head. You not liking “lowbrow” pop culture of any kind doesn’t make you anything but a goose-stepping asshole for wanting to see it all burn.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:14

Are you following the advice on how to archive your twitter posts? Did you save your myspace memories? This is no different. Times change old man, but storage is still inexpensive and not a valid argument.

The article states that it was like a twitch stream archive. It was not performance art. It was plop culture with little to no value for much of it.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:15

I didn’t bother archiving my Twitter because I didn’t consider it worth archiving before deleting it, and I was never on MySpace.

storage is still inexpensive

Hard drives are inexpensive. Storage space to hold them all is not. Neither are the electric bills for running all those drives. Sooner or later, the cost of “archiving” a large chunk of cultural works will outpace the ability of a single person to do that “archiving”. That’s why we have organizations like the Internet Archive.

…then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if you want to see that place’s storage units burn to the ground too, given how much low-brow culture is on their servers.

The article states that it was like a twitch stream archive. It was not performance art. It was plop culture with little to no value for much of it.

Two things:

  1. Cleverness is stupidity disguised as wit; repeating something you think is “clever” over and over only makes it stupider.
  2. You don’t get to play God and unilaterally decide what culture is worth saving or worth burning. Outside of the Jews burning and destroying Nazi shit after World War II, no one who wants to destroy what they think of as “lesser” culture has ever been the good guy.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:16

Lol.. With your conniptions, I’m just giggling at the last word. You can sip your toilet water and keep me giggling 🙂

You are arguing that the Internet is not archiving trash.

Muckbang is not art (as an example) and really is culture specific as a form of entertainment. I do like a good recipe though, just not those recipes for disaster (like worthless data when words are cheap) 🙂

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:17

You are arguing that the Internet is not archiving trash.

No, I’m arguing that any one person’s opinion on a specific cultural work is ultimately irrelevant to whether it deserves archival and preservation. You don’t deserve to play God on that front any more than anyone else unless you can prove you’re an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent supernatural deity who can make and unmake existence with a mere thought.

Good luck with that!

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:19

One day, you will fade away, too. And in the dust of your existence, you will likely leave nothing that even one person would consider worthy of archival and preservation.

I’m under no illusions to the contrary as it regards my inevitable death and disintegration. Can you say the same for yourself?

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:24

Between you me… Nobody says dig a hole anymore. They made earth moving equipment that does it sooooooooo much better 😉

Spewing illiteracy about an online social diary that will be shuttered, with plenty of time for the artists to archive and relocate their content, already had a relevant solution. Nobody smelt it, so nobody dealt it :p

And you are a mighty fine hole digger, if thats the fad you’re into 😐

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:28

The story was posted on mashable…… I don’t bother reading that fud. I do find some of the articpes interesting on TD though.

Are you sure your foot wasn’t delicious? You probably have several recipes by the not even hypothetical scenarios you have to make up to attempt filling nothing with nothing (dare I say gloom and doom… Glum and dumb is more appropriate) :p

I do enjoy a good giggle though

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:25

So many anons, its almost like an NPC meme without repeating the same thing…

I tried to use deductive reasoning on the various posts that did not meet the community guidelines.. But who reads the TOS anyways.

It looks like they just got tired of flagging all the posts :p

For science! Until carpal tunnel starts setting in 🙂

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:24

I’m still laughing that he put V live up on a pedastal when a brief view of the content would have clearly stated “Dude… Its a mountain of poo you’re arguing about” 🙂

I hope he did play the minute waltz to hear the determination of the dog to successfully get their tail.. And even the cringe could be felt in the notes during the endeavour of the derp.

All’s well that ends well

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

Garbage in, garbage out. Another fad if you have nothing better to enjoy.

Do you think that makes the content in question any less worthy of preservation⁠—or any less meaningful to those who have an emotional attachment to it?

Something you like might be considered a “fad” or “worthless” by others. I don’t think you’d be happy if it went away forever. (And don’t pull some high-and-mighty “I’m about protecting real culture” bullshit. Your tastes aren’t objectively “more cultured” than everyone else’s, and I’m sure you have a “guilty pleasure” or two in your cultural basement besides.)

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2

Only if we also preserve the knockdown effects of KPop as well.

How KPop created a massive, vicious fanbase willing to ear one another apart, how said fandom influenced other countries…

Oh, and one of those KPop Prettyboys getting his copyright back or something.

Personally, KPop is vapid, manufactured nonsense on par with modern American pop. Except for Psy’s work, because at least the man tries to mock the vapidness of it all…

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

Oh please, damn near every fandom is like that. Humans are bastards, and we’re bigger bastards in large groups.

Besides, whether you think K-pop is “vapid, manufactured nonsense” has no bearing on whether it deserves cultural preservation. Unless you can prove that your opinion is an objective enough reason to wipe it out⁠—and I don’t think you can.

And for the record: No, I don’t listen to K-pop. I barely know anything about it, and most of what I’ve learned about it has been involuntarily. But I still think it deserves preservation because it’s still part of both Korean culture and global culture, even if it’s a fad. Hell, if “bad” culture didn’t deserve preservation, we wouldn’t have Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:4

I am in two minds about this, actually.

On one hand, pop itself is manufactured, locked away under copyright and worse, and only serves one function: to line the pockets of the rich and widen the economic class divide. If the rich fucks don’t even bother to give a shit about a bloody racehorse that was more popular than, I dunno, WORLD WAR FUCKING TWO, you think they’d willing preserve the artifacts of their creative slaves? And Kpop is basically that. Keep a few artifacts as a grim reminder of how fucked up that is, and torch the rest, along with the rich fucks who kept this going.

On the other hand, all that also should be preserved, even if the sole reason for doing so is to understand why and to PREVENT THE SAME FUCKING THING FROM HAPPENING AGAIN. We almost lost Seabiscuit, we’ve lost many priceless documents of Antiquity because the ancients didn’t bother with preserving all the writings of their intellectuals, there’s the Q document that is likely lost to time that would shed new light on the historicity of Jesus…

I’d also like to say that despite my opinion on pop in general, even I think there’s merit in preserving the creative detritus of the past, if only to serve as a reminder to future generations about what not to do. And this can only happen if we also preserve the writings of the sociological effects (ie, the knockdown effects I was talking about) the fandom caused and how it influenced other countries, for better or for worse.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:6

My opinions on what is garbage creatively or not is irrelevant to whether that garbage needs to be preserved or not.

I am forever cursed with growing up in an environment that considered creativity a curse and an obstacle to economic progress and total political and societial control, and some of that mindset comes to bite me in the ass.

Again, all that should be preserved, along with the sociological effects and its impact on countries around the world, if only to serve as a warning on how not to manipulate and profit off people. Futre historians and sociologists can figure that out if we do preserve it in some form today, if that’s what you mean.

You can’t learn from the past if the past decided to fucking burn it all, as they say.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:7

My opinions on what is garbage creatively or not is irrelevant to whether that garbage needs to be preserved or not.

Again: You could’ve fooled me. 🙄

I am forever cursed with growing up in an environment that considered creativity a curse and an obstacle to economic progress and total political and societial control, and some of that mindset comes to bite me in the ass.

It certainly makes you sound like an uptight dick whose repression leaves them unable to enjoy any culture that could be deemed “disposable”, that’s for sure.

all that should be preserved, along with the sociological effects and its impact on countries around the world, if only to serve as a warning on how not to manipulate and profit off people

…I rest my case, Your Honor.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9

“The comment above confirmed k-pop is higher art”

If you’re referring to me, I did nothing of the sort, though your inability to parse text is noted. I simply mentioned that the song you singled out as nonsense actually had a meaning you didn’t pick up on, and that I could probably pick out nonsense elements from any other genre you prefer.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:9

I didn’t confirm anything about K-pop. As I’ve already said, I don’t even listen to K-pop. But K-pop is absolutely art, regardless of whether you think it deserves complete global eradication. Whatever anyone’s feelings on its quality are absolutely and wholly irrelevant to whether it deserves preservation.

Feel free to keep making the same shit joke over and over as if it keeps getting funnier. But I’ll leave you with this thought: I’m sure you own at least one book that someone somewhere in this world would love to burn. What makes their desire to permanently destroy a cultural work any worse than yours?

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:10

I’ll leave you with this:

A 10TB hard drive looks to be going for $200… I doubt archiving AI art is even going to be a problem… It’ll just be another fad for someone else to learn (probably a leading cause of dementia) :p

Thats about 300 hours of 4k video (600 hours @1080p) or about 30,000 mp3’s averaging 3.5 minutes. No use crying over deteriorating floppies…..

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:11

When there’s a will, there’s a way.

If I wanted to, I could preserve any streamer’s archive and I’d find a willing community who’d be happy to share the pain of finding enough bandwidth, space and legal liabilities to preserve what would essentially be petabytes of video and audio across at least 2 platforms.

If you choose to burn it all, we’d basically be no different from the past and some wold say present.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:13

The artists have the onus of archiving their uploads and finding a new online source to host their online diary.

That is not archiving,but rather limiting the life of a work to the life of the artist. Archiving requires museums and libraries, that is organizations that can persist over time.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:14

Lol. I think the article stated it clearly. Time is not equal. It will be tye artists that figure out what is valuable (to them) and what is not.

“V Live connected these entertainers with an international audience who watched them eat meals, celebrate birthdays, and produce music in real time”

ESAD is a popular acronym for the digitals 😉

This comment has been deemed insightful by the community.
Anonymous Coward says:

What's worth preserving?

Everything.

  • “… they usually mean the works of recognized artistic giants like Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Charlie Chaplin, and Miles Davis”. So many giants weren’t recognized as such in their own lifetimes, many not for some considerable time later.
  • Today’s lightweight pop or minority interest is tomorrow’s treasured heritage and revered precursor.
  • It’s not possible today to know what’s going to be important in 10/100 years time. witness historians going into ecstacy over a something as mundane as a shopping list because of the insights into ordinary lives.

Bitrot/ unsupported formats and aggressive copyright are going to leave a large hole.

Anonymous Coward says:

Maybe theres some pirate somewhere downloading kpop videos for future generations. One example theres alot of old tv uk shows from the 90s that cannot be viewed. They contain music or songs and the ip owner does not consider it worthwhile showing them on streaming services. Theres alot of live tv shows like top of the pops that are important totp was the no 1 music show on uk tv for 40 years
Its only avaidable by watching random episodes on youtube. Every pop popular singer was on it from the beatles to the rolling stones to madonna it was filmed live in bbc studios in london
The only hope is pirates will make copys or downloads avaidable for future generations

Ellie (profile) says:

Internet Archive

Remember that Wikipedia has all sorts of institutional assets, about $400 million as of 2021. I cast no aspersions on Wikipedia for the thoroughness of their fund raising campaigns and outreach efforts, btw. I actively edit Wikipedia. Yes, there are female editors!

In contrast, for most of its existence, Archive.org aka the Wayback Machine was entirely funded by its creator, Brewster Kahle. He primarily used the funds he received from the sales of his internet search-and-retrieval and web traffic analysis companies during the mid-1990s. Even with some recent external support by non-profits, there was never any concerted effort to raise funds to support the project until ~2020. This was the situation despite the Internet Archive’s unique role in preserving:

  1. what would otherwise be Internet ephemera and impermanence since 1996 as described by this Anonymous Coward’s comment;
  2. all sorts of books, pamphlets, speeches, images, press releases, and even the occasional video or film, from the early 20th century through the present. Many of these documents are no longer available via the Internet-at-large but only through university libraries, government archives, foundations, or private collections.

Remember, content that is:
–today’s consumer or popular culture (K-Pop?)
–1st amendment protected “hate speech”
–near-ubiquitous recounting of current events (e.g. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine)
–widely taught history of post-U.S. Civil War Reconstruction massacres of freedmen

may one day soon be “memory holed” or accessible only by overcoming considerable obstacles, be they financial or otherwise, e.g. allowing view at physical location only!

Do consider donating to archive.org. Even $1 is an accepted amount, right from the site’s landing page.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re:

And pop has its roots in blacks singing during the times when slavery was… legal.

There’s a lot of history behind pop and while I’m no fan of the capitalist-manufactured drek that passes for pop music in general (on a musical and ideological level), you’d probably say the same about black gospel music, R&B, jazz and whatnot.

So if pop is not worthy of being preserved, then its precursors, by your own argument, should not be preserved as well, as well as the adjacent forms of music like Black Gospel.

But hey, you’re the self-declared arbitrator of culture here. I doubt a racehorse from WW2 America is culturally significant enough to be preserved, in your eyes.

Synonymous Scaredycat (profile) says:

If fans care enough, they will find a way. Maybe someday enough fans from different backgrounds will work together to build more archives for stuff like this and if they want it, they should build it. It would be ironic if, with all their numbers and motivation for K-Pop fans not to find a solution for themselves, but I doubt they will allow something so precious to them to be lost. This is not dismissive of the concerns of data being held by companies with no motive to maintain it, but an appreciation of how fans who are digitally-enabled will find a way.

For example the early-90s club music I enjoy is much-better archived than I expected, because fans and DJs have put a lot of work into that over the past decades. I’m not going to sweat the loss of K-Pop here, but not because I dislike it (actually, thanks K-Pop fans for your interest in retro fashion and cheap mass-produced clothes; I’ve had some great finds in the ‘y2k’ style), if anything I have confidence in the technical competence and motivation of K-Pop fans to pivot from running anti-Indigenous racist harassment campaigns to preserving their own content regardless of copyright. They will put in the work to preserve what they love or maybe they never really gave two shits about it so much as the aesthetics of it, would be valid.

I’ve never cared about respecting copyright because I’m a pirate by the dint of a youth poisoned by computers and networks; being a pirate is the heritage to all ‘digital natives’ because unless something is DRM-protected the network it travels through doesn’t care it’s being pirated and the computer it’s on doesn’t care either; and if things are improperly stored you may get riches for free. Only humans care about copyright, and copyright is more like an ‘honor system’ to people who grew up being able to download almost anything their heart desires. Entering digital spaces and expecting the idea of copyright to be respected marks one as a foreigner to these spaces.

Copyright is not a technological norm, it has no physical basis in normal electronics, it is a human social technology that frankly doesn’t work and requires breaking normal digital technology to digitally enforce. That’s all being a digital pirate is, not a kind of piracy at all (though that still makes it sound cool, not like a crime despite legal/monetary penalties being life-ruining), just ignoring a broken social technology while focusing on the more interesting media that’s being ‘pirated’. Anyway I wish these K-Pop fans luck in preserving what they love, again the impetus is on them to do so; I also wish them luck in focusing more on important things like this and less on harassing people (including fellow K-Pop fans) who point out problematic things like racist band names, since only archiving their music preserves it while supporting bigotry does not.

And that’s an aspect of digital citizenship that needs to actually be taken seriously, or all that the loss of this will result in is minor handwringing by preservationists like the OP, apathy by the fans themselves, and schadenfreude like that expressed by some of the comments indicating a general dislike of K-Pop above (see the term ‘plop’ used derisively to describe pop music, oh so clever hahaha… not).

Anyway, back to watching Twitter implode under the weight of its own inability to keep bigotry in check. Kinda ironic that problem got so bad they have one of those bigoted trolls running the company now because he apparently really just wanted to be a one-man moderation team so he could censor people in the name of free speech. Thus has it always been on Twitter, fascists being banned way less than they people they harass on Twitter. Good fucking riddance to a toxic hellhole, and fuck anyone who mourns the death of Twitter.

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