Paper prints of films were an early mechanism to establish the copyright of motion pictures by depositing them with the Library of Congress. Thomas Alva Edison’s company was first to register each frame of motion-picture film onto a positive paper print, in 1893. The Library of Congress processed and cataloged each of the films as one photograph, accepting thousands of paper prints of films over a twenty-year period.
An unintended but fortunate side-effect is that while the actual films and negatives of this period often decayed or were destroyed, the paper prints sat ignored until the 1940s and were conserved. When this copyright deposit method ended in 1912, actual film prints were registered. Many films made before 1912 were lost forever because their original elements (for example, nitrate film) were too unstable for any lasting preservation or conservation. Paper prints, though, came with their own unpredictable nature, bringing migration challenges that rival the difficulties involved with the analog/digital conversions of today.