IMO the term lost media is flexible enough to include "not publicly accessible" If a big name in film like Ted Turner, Robert Iger (Disney), or Steve Stark (MGM), you could easily find half the stuff on this forum by telling your secretary to make a few emails. However, releasing it publicly would probably be more effort than it is worth. I imagine that the following are not really lost, just in some archive somewhere. - Most "lost" pilots are never meant for public release. - Deleted scenes - Previously aired shows (our biggest category). All the old and obscure TV shows that have been produced by a major studio, hold for the extremely old material, is simply in a vault somewhere.
This is why contacting people is so successful, it isn't lost, people that have it either don't know the value, don't want it seen, or are pressured by legal factors into not releasing it.
Exactly. That's the weird thing about some lost media because there's been cases where the original creator has either been looking for it for who knows how long or they aren't aware that it's considered lost. The story about Metal Noir comes to mind and how it was rediscovered by a collector not that long ago.
There are old talk shows and variety shows (particularly from 1960s and 1970s before VCRS were widely available) that still exist in archives but are only available to professional production companies who want to license parts of them for projects like documentaries. For instance, this place has a tantalizing amount of music shows that are presently considered lost, but they won't offer them to the general public.
I’d say the full version of the unreleased, and supposedly “unfinished” Faith No More song titled “The Seagull Song” or alternatively, “The Shuffle Song”, that was kept off of their Angel Dust album is not entirely lost. Only 1 minute and 35 seconds of the song is public (albeit in low quality) while the remainder is still unreleased. Other pieces of the song before the guitar was added in can be heard in the Making of Angel Dust documentary as well. Evidently, the band’s drummer, Mike “Puffy” Bordin, claims to have it locked away in his closet, while there have also been rumors that the band’s bassist Billy Gould has possession of the track and his brother was the one who leaked the snippet. Still, it would be amazing if the band could release the full version of the song, although they’ve been on record as to being hesitant on releasing the track as they were not fond of it, mainly due to the extensive usage of the guitar in the song. This fan interview conducted in 2010 featuring the band (minus lead singer Mike Patton and guitarist Jon Hudson) sheds light on the Seagull Song. The video also contains a snippet of the track although I’ll also link the aforementioned leaked piece below:
There are old talk shows and variety shows (particularly from 1960s and 1970s before VCRS were widely available) that still exist in archives but are only available to professional production companies who want to license parts of them for projects like documentaries. For instance, this place has a tantalizing amount of music shows that are presently considered lost, but they won't offer them to the general public.
They are offered to the general public, but you need a lot of money and it just isn't worth it. Here is an example of why it may not be worth the effort: The cold fact of the matter is that Jazz Scene USA and shows like it may have a significant amount of value to a museum of African-American Music, as it would be one of very few shows of the era who would give time to a black performance artist, but it has almost no value in terms of individual episodes except to the artists who were part of it and their fans. The fact that it existed is good enough for most people. If we found every single episode of Jazz Scene USA (By the way, most episodes are not lost, they are on youtube.) then you would see that it isn't that impressive as a show. At the bottom of my post is an episode if you are interested, but here is the basic synopsis. There is a musical artist, they play a few pieces, answer a few softball questions and the hosts say how great they are, not much different than other musical shows of that era. Nothing significant really happened on the show, it didn't really make anyone's career, there was never a "Beatles on Ed Sulivan" moment. The fact that it existed is the archive unto itself and if you can find every episode, I am sure it is worth watching if you have an interest, but it is not worth the thousands in licensing fees to get the few lost episodes, and that is the same with a lot of these older music shows.
Basically, the majority of truly lost media consists of silent films that were not properly preserved or accidentally destroyed in disturbingly common warehouse fires, television programs that were either broadcast live without recording or were taped over, and literature that predates the printing press.
Also, Internet media which is taken offline without having been archived (although in some cases it's likely that some people have their own copies of that media.) A case of Internet media which is effectively lost, but not really, are private YouTube videos, which can still be seen by the uploader and exist on YouTube's servers but not anywhere else.