I remember a prediction not too many years ago where someone said in the future we'd want (and more greatly value) a digital copy as opposed to the original. At first, this made no sense to me and then I recall when it did make a lot of sense. It wasn't about ownership so much as utility and control of the image and other information about the artifact. Well, a step further away from old-school reality (and toward a contemporary version of same) is believing that the public record is an extension of that newer, essential, but more elusive reality.