Original Content: Digital Context

CMS Watch has a fascinating article on their website centering on the complexities of a records management industry in the midst of a transition from traditional hard-copy storage to digital document management. What constitutes an "original" digital copy? With a signed paper contract it's easy to discern which version is the original and which is a copy of that original - but the digital creation and subsequent storage of information has broadened the grey area significantly.

According the the piece in CMS Watch:

Methods and definitions in the world of Records Management (and subsequently ECM) have been long established and remain, in many cases, as valid today as they ever have.
However, most of these methods and definitions were agreed upon when most records were physical hard copies; in most commercial situations this meant paper documents. The introduction and growth of digital documents has been embraced by the RM community, but many of these base definitions remain unchanged, and are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. One of those is the definition of an "original" document, a particularly crucial definition in these days of e-discovery.