In the past, motion picture content owners and distributors stored their precious masters on film reels, and later videotape… this required a secure climate-controlled warehouse, which incurred a hefty annual cost.

As a result, many films and other content pieces were lost, either due to timely disintegration of film/magnetic tape, or storage facility catching fire, having a breach, or content owner company going out of business and thus the storage facility discarding of the content.