What if all records of Hitler's existence, his political views, his regime, his obsession with culture, the cultural output of the Nazis were lost? What if all of the first half of the last century were only spread by word of mouth? What if newspapers, magazines, news shows, etc. were deleted the moment they were broadcast, distributed, etc.? Wha tthen? Would we be able to learn from our mistakes? Who would we be able to trust? Wouldn't we be open targets to
propaganda, regardless of whether it's pepsism, coca-colaism, or even nazism? It may seem far-fetchedand bloated, but culture today is more at risk from
extinction than, say, in the last century. We not only face rigorous copyright laws, which deem any cultural output so worthy of safeguarding that it comes damned near close to inaccessibility. We also live in an age, where culture seems to spelled "e-p-h-e-m-e-r-a-l". Books disappear from shelves once the print has run out. Records and CD's are no longer available, video and DVD titles are cast overboard the minute their economic time is up. What can we do to help future generations remember? P2P can help, even if the merit of storing hundreds of illegal files of "Friends" may be disputable. But, at least there's something there, for all its glitches and small mistakes, to preserve what we as a now global culture see fit. In Germany, this phenomenon is known as the cultural memory and it's turning even more
short-term as we speak. And, if we don't keep it alive, we might also endanger our own living memory.
