As some of you may know, I launched the PMCDAP (Production Music CD Archive Project) in early 2024 as an ongoing effort to try to preserve production music CDs. However, for a number of reasons, this project has been going rather slowly for a number of reasons. While I am still continuing the PMCDAP project for now, I have come up with a different idea for a preservation project that is smaller and more focused, although still quite large.
The goal of this new project, which I have not decided upon a name yet, is to preserve all the music albums of every library represented by APM Music in North America, including libraries like KPM, Bruton Music, and Sonoton, as well as first-party labels like NFL Music Library. This will also include labels formerly represented like Carlin Production Music (CPM).
While the current aim of the project is to essentially provide a centralized offline archive of APM Music's content, it may in the future expand to other services.
I am starting this project especially knowing that APM Music will not last forever, especially in current times where rapidly advancing technology may be reducing the demand for production music and other stock media as a whole, and especially after Digital Juices unexpectedly shut down, I do not want this music to permanently disappear off the face of the planet. APM has already lost a number of songs, albums, and even entire libraries over the years, and as much of this as possible should be preserved in addition to what is currently available.
Unlike PMCDAP which is strictly for CDs and requires a direct CD rip with specific guidelines, this project also covers vinyl and digital-only albums, and CD (or vinyl) albums can also be sourced from online sources; however, CDs may be considered the "best" source aside from online-only content. Any type of format can be used for music - WAV, FLAC, etc., although lossless formats are strongly recommended if available. The requirements for submission are much more relaxed as well.
However, this project will need a way to avoid being taken down due to legal issues and/or being seen as a "direct competitor" to the actual service, and one possible idea is to have some kind of limit as to how recent albums can be submitted, possibly a 15 year or so cutoff. (Ideally, we will want to back up the most recent albums as well, but maybe we could somehow make them "more private" and less of a priority?)
I am announcing this new idea for a project hoping to find people who can help me out and make this project a reality. Please let me know what you think of this project idea, and if you have any ideas (including an actual name for the project), please share them.
