You assume that the exclusive right to interpretation is what discourages Karl from outsourcing the time-consuming labor of listening to the recordings. At the same time, you know that Karl is not a power-hungry man; he wants to share. He works hard to digitalize the recordings so that they can be available to the public online.

The Animal Sound Archive may be a creature on its own, but it is dependent on Karl, and the dependency is mutual; it exists because he is afraid of forgetting something. As a human, both his hearing and his memory are insufficient. The recorders offer Karl a hearing aid, and the archive offers an extension of his memory. Unfortunately, as it does so, it inevitably also copies his tendency to forget. As you listen to the recordings, you wonder what it is. What happened?