Jeff Ubois on Erasing Televised History, Copyright-style:
Remember Dan Quayle’s attack on fictional character Murphy Brown? Well if you don’t, or want to refresh your recollection of the 1992 episode, you’ll have to rely on secondary sources, Jeff Ubois reports.

Due in part to the vagaries of copyright and contract, public access to the televised part of our historical record is severely limited. Ubois, while a Berkeley resarcher, was able to get almost none of the audiovisual material documenting the Quayle speech, the TV coverage, or Murphy Brown’s response. He’s just published a paper on the project: “Finding Murphy Brown: How accessible are historic television broadcasts?” with the Journal of Digital Information.
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this is absolutely despicable… but… it is not that they are blocking it… it is that there is no market? i’m not sure i believe that.