AP Adds Nearly 17,000 Hours of Archival Footage to YouTube

A color archival image of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 (Library of Congress).

LOS ANGELES - The Associated Press has agreed to upload to YouTube nearly 17,000 hours of archival footage, covering news and events dating back to 1895. The AP said the collection will be the largest collection of its kind available on the digital platform.

AP, along with newsreel archive content provider British Movietone, will deliver more than 1 million minutes of digitized film footage to Google-owned YouTube. The aims to provide jhistorical, searchable content that allows documentary filmmakers, historians, students and others to find news footage, and to promote a platform that would develop licensing deals for rights to use the video.

"The AP archive footage, combined with the British Movietone collection, creates an incredible visual journey of the people and events that have shaped our history," said Alwyn Lindsey, AP's director of international archive in a statement. "At AP we are always astonished at the sheer breadth of footage that we have access to, and the upload to YouTube means that, for the first time, the public can enjoy some of the oldest and most remarkable moments in history."

The footage will include video from the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, exclusive footage of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Marilyn Monroe captured on film in London in the 1950s and Twiggy modeling the fashions of the 1960s.