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Academic Articles

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The Role of Orphan Films in the 21st Century Archive

Dan Streible

2007

Well beyond the study of film history, advocates for public rights in digital culture (publicknowledge.org) have also adopted the orphan rubric, seeing it as a key to moderating the excesses of copyright and intellectual property law. NFPF's broad valorization of films "outside the scope of commercial preservation," including "documentaries, 'silent' movies, newsreels, ethnic films, avant-garde works, home movies, animation, anthropological footage, industrial films, and other independent works" (filmpreservation.org), continues to have a salutary impact for scholars as well as archivists.

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