The 20th Century Black Hole
Historians face a paradox: we have better access to the 19th century than the 20th. Books and photographs from 1890 are in the Public Domain and can be freely digitized. Works from 1950, however, are locked in the "Copyright Gap."
This creates a "black hole" in the digital record. A search engine will return thousands of results for the Victorian era but almost nothing for the mid-20th century local newspaper, because digitizing the latter is a liability risk.
Orphan Works
The core of the problem is the Orphan Work: a copyrighted artifact where the owner is dead, out of business, or unknown.
- The Problem: You cannot ask for permission because there is no one to ask.
- The Risk: If you digitize it, a distant heir could emerge 50 years later and sue for statutory damages.
- The Result: The artifact sits in a dark box until it disintegrates (see: Disc Rot).
Field Notes
The "Criminal Copyright Gap": There is a disparity between enforcement and reality. While corporations aggressively police blockbuster movies, millions of "low-value" orphans (family photos, amateur recordings, local software) are technically illegal to preserve, yet no one cares enough to sue—creating a frozen zone of uncertainty.
The "Google Books" Settlement: Google attempted to solve this by scanning everything and letting rights holders opt-out. The courts rejected this as a copyright violation, effectively ruling that it is better for millions of books to remain obscure than for a private company to "usurp" copyright law.
Ephemera
In digital archaeology, abandonware sites operate in this gap. They host "Orphan Software" from the 90s, technically breaking the law, but providing the only functional archive of an entire generation of gaming history.