How are YOU protecting legacies?

In June 2021, Iron Mountain Media & Archive Services and the Recording Academy’s Producers & Engineers Wing (P&E Wing) co-hosted a summit on International Archives Day entitled, “Protecting Legacies: The Art, Science and Value of Music Archives.” The purpose of the summit was to start an industry-wide conversation about the importance of educating artists and their teams about thoughtful music archiving. Safeguarding these precious collections will ensure they are able to realize the full value of future monetization opportunities. The virtual event featured stakeholders from all corners of the recorded music industry, including artists, producers, engineers, lawyers, publishers, and archivists. 

Based on key topics raised at the summit, Iron Mountain Media & Archive Services created a survey, with input from the P&E Wing, with the intent to discover current trends and best (or worst) practices in audio archiving within the recorded music professional community.  The survey was sent to 3,000 members of the P&E Wing and 11,000 subscribers of the Audio Engineering Society (AES).

The survey received a phenomenal 10% response rate, clearly indicating that this is a topic many audio professionals have an interest in. 

Some of the most interesting findings were:

• The vast majority of the 1400 respondents reported that they have been in the music industry for more than 20 years.
• Of those who responded, 65% of respondents report they regularly give archiving advice to others.
• The most common advice they give is some variation on the theme of "Make 3 copies, in different formats, and keep them in different locations." 
• A full 22% of respondents say they NEVER check the health of their backups (spoiler alert: this won’t end well for those assets).

ICYMI, in October 2021, Maureen Droney, Managing Director of the P&E Wing, Cheryl Pawelski Co-Founder of Omnivore Recordings, and our own Head of Marketing Meg Travis presented the top-level findings at the AES Fall Conference. 

Check out our infographic for more insight.