Bootleg Restorers

Bootleg Restorers are people who've opted to archive media after The Withering caused a lot of known entertainment such as music, video games, tv-shows, cartoons, anime, movies and literature to be lost due to being caught up in the destruction; lost due to the temporary shutdown of the internet that occured, or otherwise. Although people don't realize the importance of the job sometimes; many do it diligently for the sake of keeping the memories alive.
Oftentimes, people will do the job without pay. However, some organizations will often pay Restorers with not only digital, holographic and physical copies of the media they archived and discovered; but a hefty sum of V-Units or FSTOPS.

Operations

Tools

The name comes from how the restorers often have to result to rather guerilla tactics to archive the media they come across. As such, the tools needed will differ from person to person. Some will use camcorders or a jurry-rigged recording setup for VHS tapes; others will take pictures of each page of a book to properly save it all; and so on. Digital forms of media such as video games will often require work by third-parties to remove any DRM requirements the media has. The means include, per media:

• Video Games (Digital) ~ Digital video games can be rather tricky to archive, due to the fact that in the seven years leading up to The Withering, DRM had become prevalent for video games, ranging from checks with the CPU to always-online connectivity. With DRM, it requires more technological knowledge that Crackers are relied on for.


• Video Games (Physical) ~ Physical video games fall into two different categories: Discs and Cartridges; oftentimes requiring emulation software to run. While the former is fairly easy to have the files ripped off of the disc, the latter requires specialized hardware such as ROM Dumpers to digitize it. Oftentimes, Crackers will be needed to ward off any antipiracy measures that might exist.


• TV Shows, Cartoons, Anime ~ There are two ways people can obtain these forms of media: via physical discs that has its files transferred onto a computer or recording footage via external hardware such as DVRs or camcorders. Generally, the latter option will be taken in the event that the footage is on an analog format such as VHS.


• Literature ~ Oftentimes, people will take one of two means of preserving literature: taking pictures of each page with a camera, or using a photo-copier to digitalize each page. In more extreme cases, people will completely type up the literature on their computer to send online; though this comes with the caveat of people making alternations to the literature for one reason or another; an occurance that has happened a fair bit.


• Internet Videos ~ This is a tough situation, as a majority of videos were lost when various server providers for video hosting services either went down or were heavily corrupted. Most people will either get the videos by uploading them theirselves if they were the creators of the video; or via uploading them if the videos were downloaded in the timespan before The Withering occured.


• Music ~ A relatively easy format to copy, as you can either simply rip the files off of a disc, or record them via camcorder or audio recorder. Generally seen as the easiest format for people to get ahold of.

Alternative Names

Classic Recorders, Archrivists

Type

Technology

Other Associated professions

• Crackers

Related Locations

• American Wasteland
• Earth

Used By

• Animemories
• Historica Memorica
• Kong 97 Film Archrival Company
• YouTwobe

Noteworthy Lost Media

• 1/3rds Of Video Games released pre-2000s, including classic Nintendo, Sony, and Playstation games
• Original cuts of Star Wars films
• Music created from before the 80s
• Half of the Exilia Series
• Programs, animations and games developed in the animation program Adobe Flash
• M&M's Zuma Clone
• Millions of videos uploaded onto YouTube.