BBC Presents An Open News Archive

Cus writes "The BBC have opened a section of their news archive under a Creative Archive license. Nearly 80 items covering the last 50 years are available, with the full list available on their site. Paul Gerhardt the project director of the Creative Archive License Group, from the official announcement: 'The BBC's telling of those stories is part of our heritage, and now that the UK public have the chance to share and keep them we're keen to know how they will be used.'"

Comments

What about the rest of us

[JonN]

"and now that the UK public have the chance to share and keep them"

And the rest of us don't?

However on to more important ideas, I believe this is another great step forward in opening knowledge to everyone, such as when Princeton's collection of more than 10,000 works will be categorized, posted for world to study. These are pieces of work and acadamia that everyone should have access to, as it expands minds and ideas, and pushes us forward, intellectually.

Re:What about the rest of us

[jmcmunn]

FTFA...sounds like we all need to find a proxy in the UK. :-) Really though, I suppose that breaks all kinds of "international laws".

The archive content released here under the Creative Archive Licence will use limited DRM (Digital Rights Management), but not at the cost of user creativity. For instance, to help us identify our source material we will be using a patented Video Watermarking technology where a virtual barcode will be embedded into the video clips. This invisible stamp can be read through video editing and format changes so that any video sequence can be traced back to its source. This will not interfere with legitimate users, but it will assist the BBC if there is an attempt to commercially exploit our material.

The BBC is using a technology called GEO-IP filtering to ensure that archive content sourced directly from these BBC sites will only be available to UK citizens

Re:What about the rest of us

[hug_the_penguin]

UK The Creative Archive content is made available to internet users for use within the UK.

Looks that way doesn't it? Given the BBC has a definite worldwide presence, would it not make sense for them to open it up to other countries as well? It's a bizarre choice, just like they used DRM on the iMP service to lock it into the UK. I can see they don't want to waste bandwidth on non licence paying countries, but either stop broadcasting BBC World and pull out of the world altogether or just do the sensible thing and let other countries share the archive.

Re:What about the rest of us

[gowen]

Given the BBC has a definite worldwide presence, would it not make sense for them to open it up to other countries as well? It's a bizarre choice

I imagine that, at least partially, it's a rights issue. For example, the BBC have the rights to the 1966 World Cup for broadcast within the UK, but not worldwide.

Re:What about the rest of us

[Bogtha]

Given the BBC has a definite worldwide presence, would it not make sense for them to open it up to other countries as well?

The rest of the world don't pay a TV license that funds the BBC. The UK public do.

If I remember correctly, they are forced to do it this way because of the way that their charter is written. It's really not that bizarre when you think about it - the BBC acts in the UK public's interests - by selling their content to foreign countries instead of giving it away, they are reducing the cost of the license fee for the UK public.

Re:What about the rest of us

[hug_the_penguin]

I disagree. They could allow the public in other countries access and demand certain uses be licenced, that would be a much fairer system. In any case, how many people are going to go find a UK proxy after reading this article?

Re:What about the rest of us

[Angostura]

I imagine also that this is also, at least partly, a political/public-opinion issue.

The BBC is fairly regularly attacked in the UK for spending so much on a Web presence that is heavily used by an international audience but which is paid for by a tax on TVs. It would get a right old kicking from the UK press and in particular the Murdoch press if it made content that "we have paid for" freely available overseas. For those who don't realise - the BBC's World Service is paid for directly by the foreign and commonwealth office, not from the TV licence fee.

The License fee is supposed to be spent entirely on the provision of services to the UK population. The BBC is watching its back here.

Re:What about the rest of us

[elyobelyob]

Look, I'll have a word with Auntie for our American cousins if they all promise to watch the 1966 World Cup video, say "Ruddy good show old boys" and sing the National Anthem proudly (knowing every word .. including the sixth verse).

They then have to sit through the Queen's speech every Christmas Day, just after they've eaten a huge meal, cannot move and cannot find the remote.

Re:What about the rest of us

[LordSnooty]

And the rest of us don't?

Pffft. Please send £126.50 to the BBC, Wood Lane, London and we might let you have access for a year.

Re:What about the rest of us

[LordSnooty]

It's a very, very good point. Also note that stations like BBC World, America, Prime etc etc are all advertiser-funded, not paid for by the licence fee.

Re:What about the rest of us

[camperslo]

The problem is that there are many people in the UK who would love to end the TV license system of funding the BBC

After seeing what's happened to tv in the U.S., I hope for your sake it doesn't happen. At least not if it means running advertising. With the exception of public television, news coverage and programming here have been getting worse and worse.

Advertising is pushing many things that are not in the public interest, and the media news barely covers the negative impacts of those companies/products. There are no longer any limits on how much advertising stations can air. Some of the smaller stations where I am run infomercials more than half of the time. Many half-hour long infomercials are aired, many of them are promoting scammers. Many drug companies run ads at a time when we're spending more money than ever on drugs and it is driving health insurance costs to where many individuals and even businesses cannot afford them. There is heavy advertising for products made in China even though there is a huge trade deficit. Between the operation and purchasing power of Wal-Mart, a huge distributor of mostly Chinese products, many retail and manufacturing businesses have closed costing many jobs.
TV ads promote many very unhealthy and relatively expensive foods at a time when many Americans are grossly overweight and still more suffer from eating unhealthy processed junk. Even children are developing diabetes from bad eating habits.
Political corruption is a serious problem. Much of the bad legislation that it passed gets little public outcry because the media don't put enough importance on it. Much of the corruption of politicians starts when they have to resort to funding from the wrong sources to wage competitive (usually nasty and misleading) political ads. Of course its the media getting all that money. If the media didn't run paid political ads things wouldn't be as bad. The media is all about consumption. Frequent ads promote credit cards with incredibly nasty contracts, at a time when the average family has close to $10,000 in credit card debt. While there is some coverage of global warming and environmental issues, they fail to take politicians to task for bad legislation, and continue promoting things that are bad for the environment. Broadcast ownership has been largely taken over by huge corporations. The old limit of 7 AM, 7 FM, and 7 TV stations by one owner is gone. Clear Channel owns over 1000 tv and radio stations. This leads to more political corruption, less diverse news, and far less diverse exposure of music nationally. It is pretty much all or nothing exposure for musicians now.

The media mentions computer malware but never points to alternate operating systems for relief.

Many TV programs are now so-called reality shows. Many are produced at low cost using members of the public. Basically anything cheap to produce that gets a large audience is aired. An early episode of Fear Factor, had contestants eating animal penises in their competition for the prize.
The media tend to all focus on some "big" story, while ignoring far more important things.
For instance when they were all preoccupied with coverage of the jury selection for Michael Jackson here, the BBC had coverage of about 60% of the Iraqi oil money that was overseen by the US to be used for reconstruction being unaccounted for. (If the BBC hadn't had this on the web, I would have never known. I haven't been able to find that story again though. Hmmmm)
Most tv in the U.S. is very bad, at least we still have PBS (public television). It includes some programming from the BBC also. US radio is even worse than tv. The audio is overprocessed, most of the programming comes from satellite sources and computer automation (which inserts local-sounding announcers). Half of the time if there's a major power outage, fire or other problem in the medium sized community I'm in, none of the stations will be talking about it while it is happening. Small-market news operation

Nice...

[jmcmunn]

The BBC certainly has the right idea with the sharing of information and history. Here in the US we seem to be much more wrapped up in who owns the rights to something and how to make money from it. The BBC on the other hand seems to be putting as much as possible into the hands of the public, making it easier for people to get to the information we all deserve to be able to see. According to what I read on the site, all they ask is that you not commercialize it, and give credit for where it came from. Seems fair to me! Nice job BBC.

Beta test is for UK only

[Vainglorious Coward]

"and now that the UK public have the chance to share and keep them"

And the rest of us don't?

The archive is only available to IP addresses originating from the UK.

YES!

[Caspian]

Now that the annals of history have been released as open source, I can edit the past to suit my whims!

I'm hereby releasing GNU/History, a fork of the past 50 years in which every computer runs Linux and Bill Gates is RMS's plumber. At long last! Now to set up a Wiki...

Re:YES!

[gowen]

He who controls the past, controls the future.
We are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
Eurasia had proven links to the 9/11 evildoers.

Berlin Wall footage

[Winlin]

I was just thinking the other day about some of the most memorable events I have watched on the news, and the one I most wished I had taped more of was the Wall being swarmed by those happy crowds. And now the BBC has given me a late Xmas present:)
    Those were the days...when you turned on the news to see what new GOOD stuff had happened since you last watched.

Re:Wikimedia

[gowen]

Can this be added to wikimedia ? ... Last point of license: The Creative Archive content is made available to internet users for use within the UK.

So ... that would be "No", then. And you were so nearly there...

Re:Wikimedia

[arron_donaldson]

Can this be added to wikimedia ?

No. It's not really an open license at all. For one thing it forbids commercial use. And it's limited to the UK! In my eyes this constitutes an abuse of the word "open".

Fantastic idea, I hope they expand on it...

[Aphrika]

I had a quick flick through what's there and it's currently mostly MS Encarta kind of material: those landmark events that put the last 50 years on the map. So in a way it's great as an additional resource for school projects and that kind of thing. However, I can't help but think that the clips are each like islands - there's so much more that the BBC could offer around each clip - a bit like their On This Day section which I absolutely love.

I can't but help think that if history began 50 years ago, the BBC would be the best record of it. Over time, the information the BBC collects and stores will become more relevant and more complete than most archives out there, and the fact that they're opening it up for use is great. My only fear is that they'll stop with the 'big' stuff - the Encarta style stuff we're seeing here.

The other interesting point is: if there are x new organisations in the world collecting, collating and storing y amount of information(*) each on a minute by minute basis, is there a possibility that Google(**) would cease to be able to deal with the capacity? Currently it indexes what it can see, but what about the millions and millions of pages, articles, scripts, reports, audio and video recordings that are not online? People I've met that work at the BBC assure me that they have access to tools that 'put Google to shame' when cross-referencing information (I'd love to know more about this if any Beeb employees would like to reply).

I digress, in any case this is a good thing. Free information is a good thing...

(*) Important to note that Google just indexes what's there, rather than it being an information supplier.
(**) Can we coin a Law describing the point in a thread when Google is first mentioned in a Slashdot thread? Goodot's Law?

Re:The BBC and Microsoft

[RonnyJ]

From the iMP FAQ:

Expired programmes are automatically deleted from your hard drive after the 8-day window. Programmes expire due to rights agreements

You can complain about it, but the fact remains that the BBC are currently legally unable to offer many of their programmes in non-DRM formats. In the meantime, however, I'm sure that hundreds of thousands of UK broadband users will be satisfied with what the iMP offers them.

Re:And yet their DRM...

[Aphrika]

I'd wager there that the BBC is different, but in a slightly different way than you'd expect.

That difference is the £126.50 TV license that any TV-owning UK household has to pay. Hence this is is the reason why content is locked in via country - it's not really free as such, we're paying for it. However, it's damn good money for 365 days a year of TV and full content from their online service (including iMP).

£126.50? It's a bargain. Do I mind that I pay for it? No, not at all...

Wha...?

[lheal]

Here in the US we seem to be much more wrapped up in who owns the rights to something and how to make money from it.

You're holding up the BBC as an paragon of social virtue by comparing them to whom? CNN, or PBS? The BBC was created for this kind of thing. Making content available to the public is straight out of the BBC Charter:

OBJECTS OF THE CORPORATION
3. The objects of the Corporation are as follows:-
(a) To provide, as public services, sound and television broadcasting services (whether by analogue or digital means) and to provide sound and television programmes of information, education and entertainment for general reception in Our United Kingdom [...]

Re:Wha...?

[LordSnooty]

Ah, I love being a Brit. Look at the first paragraph of the charter. "TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETING!" That's actually part of an official government document! Ah, you USians would kill for a history which can begat such quaint traditions.

Re:The BBC and Microsoft

[LordSnooty]

why they feel the need to lock it into the UK,

I can answer that one for you now - right for programmes on iMP will have already been agreed, and they will cover broadcast in the UK only. It would be even more expensive to secure rights for worldwide broadcast, and it would no doubt slash the number of shows they could offer for download. As the charter notes, they already have an obligation to deliver the content to licence-fee payers. This project merely extends the obligation to p2p. Still, you raise some valid points, be interesting to hear the response.

Damn! Those Brits have beaten us again.

[craXORjack]

While Uncle Sam schemes to wring the last few cents out of fifty year old news clips and commentaries, John Bull just starts giving it away thus ensuring that History will a british spin on it for the next thousand years. What's next? I suppose the French will start giving their music away so that the rhythmic ditties of our lovely Britney will be relegated to the forgotten dustheap of the late 20th century? I can't think of anything worse unless someone like the Swedes did away with copyright entirely. Then our grandchildren could grow up thinking Ingmar Bergman was the greatest filmmaker of our day instead of Quentin Tarentino. How could I live in a world where european artsy-fartsy movies become the basis of third millenia culture while Kill Bill 2 rots a slow celluloid death in a forgotten warehouse in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles? Oh woe. Woe is me.

Thanks BBC, now where are the torrents?

[Willuknight]

This is wonderful, i can already see an entire range of clips i want to watch, yet when i click, i see a horrid "brits only" sign... Anyone posted torrents yet ?

Re:demo, and probably thrown out much of the rest.

[meringuoid]

I think you'll find if/when they release more it will become apparent how much doesn't exist any more. BBC archives of programmes like Dr. Who have been thrown out or wiped and I am sure this is true of many other recordings.

Certainly true, but still, the BBC's archive is still enormous, and has got to be one of the most valuable records we have of the 20th century. If this pilot works well, there's a lot they could add to it.

Regarding the Slashdotter's dream of a vast, legal online archive of Doctor Who - the problem there will be with copyrights and actors' contracts and so forth. For example, Terry Nation (or rather, the estate thereof) owns the Daleks. For them to confront the Ninth Doctor took a lot of negotiation by the BBC. What fee would be demanded of the BBC if they proposed to put all the old Dalek episodes online for free download? Or, suppose that, say, Tom Baker's contract says he gets x pounds every time an episode in which he appears gets repeated. How does that translate to downloads? Does he get a penny every time someone downloads an episode? Must the BBC now track down every actor in every episode and negotiate individually with them all?

They'll be busy enough digitising the old news footage for a long time yet. Time enough for a legal framework to be sorted out in which they can begin adding the adventures of the Time Lord.