[Upd-discuss] Wired on BBC Creative Archive

[Mlfveer@cs.com]

This is a powerful move in the effort to free content that needs to be unchained. My fingers are crossed that nothing gets in the way of this happening.

Mitch Featherston


David Tannenbaum <davidt@public-domain.org> wrote:

>The BBC's pioneering plans to put its archival material online for free 
>non-commercial use would be a landmark in the digital age, and we have 
>been working to insure that the Archive lives up to its potential.
>
>Wired has a story today on our efforts, pasted below and at 
>http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63857,00.html.
>
>Last week we signed on to a letter with the "Friends of the Creative 
>Domain" coalition that we helped organise, and sent a letter of our own. 
>  Both are available at http://www.public-domain.org/?q=node/view/36.
>
>To stay up to date on the Friends of the Creative Domain campaign, 
>including reactions to the letter, sign up for the creative-friends 
>e-mail list at 
>http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/creative-friends. Our 
>success depends solely on the number of supporters for a full archive, 
>so please do encourage others to join up.
>
>This effort is driven by volunteers, and if you are interested in 
>helping out, please do contact me!
>
>David
>
>------------------------------------------------------
>
>BBC to Open Content Floodgates
>By Katie Dean
>
>Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,63857,00.html
>
>02:00 AM Jun. 16, 2004 PT
>
>The British Broadcasting Corporation's Creative Archive, one of the most
>ambitious free digital content projects to date, is set to launch this
>fall with thousands of three-minute clips of nature programming. The
>effort could goad other organizations to share their professionally
>produced content with Web users.
>
>  The project, announced last year, will make thousands of audio and
>video clips available to the public for noncommercial viewing, sharing
>and editing. It will debut with natural-history programming, including
>clips that focus on plants, animals and birds.
>
>  "The Creative Archive is fuel for the creative nation," said Paula Le
>Dieu, co-director of the initiative. "It allows people to download these
>excerpts and be able to edit them and incorporate them into their own
>creative works."
>
>  Other organizations, including some small music publishers in the
>United States, have begun to offer their content to users under liberal
>licensing terms. In contrast to record companies and Hollywood -- which
>are trying to lock down their content with help from legislators --
>these organizations believe that liberal licensing terms will generate
>even more interest in their content. In fact, in the BBC's case, access
>to its programming archive is part of its charter. In the United
>Kingdom, anyone who owns a television must pay a BBC-allocated fee, so
>the public owns its programming.
>
>  In the past, the BBC has not been efficient at making its archives
>accessible, Le Dieu said, but the Internet makes it much easier. In
>addition, digital distribution and editing tools now enable audiences to
>modify the content for their own creative endeavors.
>
>  The BBC archive would only be available to British citizens who pay
>the yearly TV license fee. Anyone who tries to visit the site through a
>foreign IP address won't be allowed to log on, Le Dieu said.
>
>  She said the BBC is working on ironing out various legal and
>contractual issues. The BBC plans to license its materials using a
>system similar to Creative Commons, an American organization that has
>developed a set of flexible copyright licenses for creators of digital
>content.
>
>  But clearing the rights is a significant challenge. Some clips contain
>elements like musical soundtracks, which may require getting permission
>from the copyright holders.
>
>  "Much of our programming is interspersed with other programming owned
>by other people," Le Dieu said. "We completely understand the audience's
>interest in getting the full programming. We're trying to balance that
>desire with the rights of the (content) ownership."
>
>  Those technical and legal challenges may render the archive
>incomplete, some fear.
>
>  "We want to make sure that the archive is more than just shagging
>marmots," said David Tannenbaum, coordinator for the Union for the
>Public Domain. "There's been no public discussion of how they are going
>to get beyond these nature clips."
>
>  Tannenbaum said the group hopes to build support to change the BBC's
>charter in 2006, when it comes up for review, so that the BBC will
>commit more fully to open access. Also, the group wants the BBC to clear
>rights with other copyright holders in its future contracts, so that the
>BBC can freely distribute other producers' works.
>
>  But observers expect commercial broadcasters to oppose the archive and
>the expansion of liberal licensing efforts, arguing that they cannot
>compete with free programming.
>
>  "We hope that by getting this into the charter, that people within the
>BBC will be able to stand up to the objections that get raised as time
>goes by," said Cory Doctorow, European affairs coordinator for the
>Electronic Frontier Foundation. "They will have the ammunition they need
>to say, 'This is exactly what the BBC is there for: to really move
>public broadcasting into the next century and define what public
>broadcasting looks like in an Internet world.'"
>
>  Lawrence Lessig, Stanford law professor and founder of Creative
>Commons, said the BBC's plan would help the world understand that there
>is more at stake in the copyright war than "piracy."
>
>  "If the archive succeeds ... then that will drive demand for
>computers, broadband and software to enable that creativity," he said.
>"Businesses -- beyond the content industry -- will recognize just what's
>at stake."
>
>  The BBC hopes others will follow its lead.
>
>  "We hope that we can provide a model so other rights holders can do
>something similar," Le Dieu said.
>
>
>-- 
>David Tannenbaum
>Coordinator
>Union for the Public Domain
>http://www.public-domain.org
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