We Want Your Tools! Or Do We? On Digitized Cultural Heritage Archives And Commercial Content Identification Tools

This article reflects on the technical gap that exists between academic and corporate capacities to study how digitized cultural heritage is reused online. In the context of tracing how audiovisual archival content is remixed and reinserted into new cultural contexts, the article asks what it would mean for humanistic researchers—and cultural heritage institutions more broadly—to utilize content identification tools provided by actors such as Google. How could commercial techniques for policing copyrights and tracing the whereabouts of online content be re-purposed to assist in research concerning remix practices and transformed cultural
memories? What technical and legal consequences would such partnerships yield? And would such collaborations be ethical and scientifically defendable in the first place? Ultimately, the article reflects on the legal and technical discrepancies that exist between academic and commercial actors when it comes to monitoring how cultural content moves online. It also asks questions about what it means to care for digitized heritage collections in the 21st century.