C-SPAN Adopts Creative Commons-Style License

Trillian_1138 writes "C-SPAN, a network in the US dedicated to airing governmental proceedings, has adopted a Creative Commons-style license for all its content. This follows the network claiming Speaker of the House Pelosi's use of C-Span videos on her site violated their copyright. Specifically, 'C-SPAN is introducing a liberalized copyright policy for current, future, and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency — about half of all programming offered on the C-SPAN television networks — which will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution.' Here is the press release. The question remains whether videos of governmental proceedings should be public domain by default or whether the attribution requirement is reasonable in the face of easy video copying and distribution."

Comments

Yeah.

[Sneakernets]

The speaker of the house ... violating copyright?

I'm not surprised. I've violated copyright, everyone and their mother has. Hell, you can violate copyright by doing the Electric slide wrong these days.

Re:Yeah.

[boldtbanan]

Hell, you can violate copyright by doing the Electric slide wrong these days.

Actually, you're more likely to be violating copyright if you do the Electric slide correctly. If you do it wrong you might have a chance if you claim you were parodying the original.

Definition

[russint]

How do you define non-commercial? What about sites with ads on them, are they commercial?

Re:Definition

[phantomfive]

IANAL, but basically if you are doing it for money, then it is commercial. If you are a non-profit organization, then even with ads it is not commercial. If you are a corporation, then you better be able to show you are not doing it for profit. Think of google news: not a single ad on the page.

Re:Definition

[Red Flayer]

If you are a non-profit organization, then even with ads it is not commercial

Not so. Not-for-profit does not imply non-commercial. Non-profits, even those classified as 501c(3), can still participate in commercial activity, provided it is not the focus of the organization. For example, PBS (a 501c(3)) cannot use copyrighted works without attribution, and even then still requires permission for otherwise-infringing use, even though they are a non-profit.

Re:Definition

[phantomfive]

PBS cannot use copyrighted works in any way that infringes on the copyright law. That has nothing to do with C-SPAN, it's just the law. Allowing use for non-commercial purposes is an extra use that C-SPAN has allowed because they choose to, not because they are required to by law. So if they choose to let organizations like PBS use their materials, they can write that in to the license. If they choose to disallow non-profit organizations from using their material, they can specifically write that into the license. If they want to keep people from advertizing when presenting their works, they can write that into the license as well. Any rights they give you beyond what is required by law is up to them, just as with the GPL.

Re:Definition

[Red Flayer]

Right. But my point was that the OP stated that all non-profit use is, by definition, non-commercial. This is not the case. Plenty of non-profits engage in commercial activity that would prohibit them from using the material for that purpose under C-Span's licensing.

Re:Definition

[jfengel]

Correct. A non-profit often does participate in commerce, i.e. it sells things to make money. Non-profit status just says what it does with the money, which goes to some stated purpose rather than to enriching the owners of the company.

A nonprofit doesn't even have owners in the usual sense; it has a management and a document explaining what that company does. Any money it makes must go to that purpose. It can sell stuff, and hire employees. Those employees can even be paid quite handsomely, though usually not; the employees of nonprofits often see the public good as their goal and work for less money. Necessary employees, however, like skilled fund raisers, will often do quite well for themselves.

But they generally behave just like any other corporation; they get no breaks on copyrights and have to buy rights like anybody else. The uses of copyright material are with the purpose raising money for some purpose or other: using a copyrighted image in a fundraising campaign, performing a play under copyright as part of an educational mission, etc. That's very commercial activity, even if it's a noble cause.

Metavid

[Adhemar]

Does this mean metavid can resume its activities (in high quality ogg theora, as always) using C-SPAN material without problems?

What am I missing?

[zappepcs]

Yes, government records, or records of government actions/meetings/debates etc. should be public and free. If C-SPAN spends time and resources to do the recording, why shouldn't they be afforded the attribution?

Re:What am I missing?

[Aladrin]

Exactly. If you want it for 'free', get up off your lazy butts and go tape it yourself. If you want it for the low, low price of telling where it came from, you can now use C-Span's media.

Re:What am I missing?

[Lord Bitman]

"It receives no funding from any government source, has no contract with the government, and does not sell sponsorships or advertising."

I had no idea :\

Re:What am I missing?

[Divide By Zero]

This is true. C-SPAN can pack up its cameras and go home.

Trouble is, the content (anything produced by the government) is paid for by taxpayers, and therefore is in the public domain. I work for the government, and images and copy I produce as part of my job can't be copyrighted because anybody in the country could claim partial ownership by virtue of the fact that they paid for the office I sit in, the computer I make it on, the power to run them both, and my time to make it.

(Whether or not I'm on gov't time right now or on break will determine if this post is in the public domain.)

So where does C-SPAN get to say "Okay, it's not public domain anymore"? You can charge for duplication and distribution, as all we linux nerds know, but what do they have to do to assert a copyright or the legal standing to apply a license, creative commons or otherwise? Does a recording of an explicitly public domain performance automatically pass into PD? If push comes to shove, does C-SPAN have a leg to stand on?

I honestly don't know, and can't come up with some way to reconcile the two.

Re:What am I missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Attribution is necessary so the source can be verified. With today's readily availble editing technology it would not be hard to create convincing fakes. It also enables a way to trace back to the context that a clip may have been separated from.

Re:What am I missing?

[PatHMV]

It's very simple. The copyright is not in the live speech or debate or whatever, but in the recording of that speech or debate. If I happen to bring a video camera to a public forum and record it, that videotape and the footage on it is mine, because I am the one who "fixed" (i.e. recorded) it onto a medium. Imagine 5 guys with a camera taking pictures in a public place. They may take 5 very similar images, but the copyright for each image belongs to the photographer who took it, not the subject. Or consider the local studio photographer. You pay him to take your picture and sell you prints, but he owns the copyright of the pictures that he took of you (unless he agrees to sell them to you, of course). Even though the picture is of you, the copyright belongs to him.

Similarly, for Congressional committee hearings and the like, C-Span cameras, paid for with private C-Span dollars (they receive no taxpayer subsidies) are responsible for recording the image. Thus, C-Span owns the copyright to that video and audio recording.

Unlike your writings, those recordings are not a "U.S. government work" (the technical term in the copyright law), and so C-Span has the copyright on them.

In contrast, the footage of speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives are recorded by cameras owned and operated by government employees. Thus, like your writings, they are U.S. governmnet works. Anybody who wants to can hook into the feed and broadcast it, copy it into their computer, whatever.

The OP gets it massively wrong when it says that C-Span asserted copyright to what Pelosi republished on her blog. They never did. A GOP guy asked a question of a random C-Span employee; between the two of them, they misunderstood the details (it was floor speeches not committee speeches) and the random C-Span employee told the GOP guy it was copyrighted. That was wrong, and within the day, once it became an issue, C-Span had made sure to get the correct information out.

I discuss in more detail here and here on my blog.

Re:What am I missing?

[Nullav]

So does this mean that I can re-record a public domain recording playing on a television and assert copyright on the new recording?

It makes sense to me why C-SPAN should have a say in what is done with what they pay to record and broadcast, but at the same time it seems absurd that they should be able to do so on something that they merely recorded and broadcasted. They contributed nothing to the proceedings in the way of creativity, other than the camera angle.

Actually, now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure they can't.

Re:What am I missing?

[PatHMV]

No, because you're merely copying something already in the public domain. There's no copyright in, say, a life performance. It's not a thing which can be copied. It can be recorded, but not copied. Here's section 102 of the copyright law: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/u sc_sec_17_00000102----000-.html

Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Works of authorship include the following categories:

Note the language "fixed in any tangible medium of expression." Until it is fixed in a tangible medium of expression, it is not subject to copyright. What is protected from copying by the copyright law is the thing which is fixed in the tangible medium of expression. Stop and think for a moment about things like candid photos of people out in the real world. Not models being paid to pose, just everyday journalism photos, snapshots, etc. The photographers who take those pictures just "recorded and broadcast" what they saw, but they still own the copyright to those photos. Also, if anybody could simply pick up and rebroadcast the C-Span footage, what incentive would they have to pay the cameramen? Why should they do all that work, if anybody else would be free to pirate the signal and broadcast it themselves, without having to pay for the cameras and the cameramen, the competitor could provide the same product for much less.

Re:What am I missing?

[LuYu]

Exactly. If you want it for 'free', get up off your lazy butts and go tape it yourself.

Is that even possible? I was under the impression that the cameras in Congress were controlled by Congress itself and that C-Span had an exclusive license to obtain and distribute that footage. Does Congress allow any US citizen with a video camera to tape its proceedings at any time?

If not, it is obvious that C-Span has no right to exclusivity at all. They probably do not even own the cameras. The public probably does. However, I have no time to check on this assertion as I am off to an appointment. Cheers.

Re:What am I missing?

[Aladrin]

That's a good point. I had a few minutes here, so I looked it up. The answer is: Both.

The United States owns the cameras used in floor debates, but C-Span uses their own cameras for hearings. C-Span even started to revoke their statement against Pelosi, but then found that some of their video was indeed among the stuff 'taken'.

One idea concerns me now, though... C-Span has initial access to all the video before anyone else, as far as I can tell. Doesn't that leave them open to corruption?

http://www.themoneyblogs.com/siliconvalleywatcher/ my.blog/22607-who-owns-video-of-congress-a-crack-i n-the-c-span-business-model.html

huh?

[compro01]

am i misunderstanding something or is that even eligible for copyright?

wouldn't a recording of government procedings br considered a government work, and thus not be copyrightable? or does this not apply as C-SPAN is a private-sector company recording and broadcasting public-sector procedings?

either way, video of government proceding should be open to the public and not subject to restrictions, so i consider this to be a Good Thing.

Re:huh?

[Baricom]

It depends on whose doing the recording. If a non-governmental entity does the recording, they own the copyright to that particular taping of the event. This means you could theoretically have CNN, Fox News, and C-SPAN at a Congressional hearing, and each would own the copyright to their footage and would not have access to the other tapes without permission.

In C-SPAN's case, what they broadcast can be divided loosely into two categories: footage shot by the government and footage shot by them. The House and Senate floor coverage is shot by crews and equipment owned by the Congress; C-SPAN merely takes a feed and retransmits it with their graphics. Thus, the floor sessions are public domain.

For other C-SPAN programs, the network sends its own equipment and crews to the hearing or event. Therefore, they own the copyright.

I think this is a good step in the right direction, but I'm concerned that (1) C-SPAN will use this as leverage to get their cameras into the House and Senate so they can restrict these programs and (2) that not using a standardized Creative Commons license adds to the paperwork that potential users will have to deal with.

Re:huh?

[rjstanford]

In C-SPAN's case, what they broadcast can be divided loosely into two categories: footage shot by the government and footage shot by them. The House and Senate floor coverage is shot by crews and equipment owned by the Congress; C-SPAN merely takes a feed and retransmits it with their graphics. Thus, the floor sessions are public domain.

For other C-SPAN programs, the network sends its own equipment and crews to the hearing or event. Therefore, they own the copyright.

I would say that its all C-SPAN content in that case. If you want to make public domain copies of the floor recordings, why get them from C-SPAN in the first place? Go to the source and pick up the same feed that they're using.

Unless C-SPAN adds value over and above what that feed provides (storage, cleanup, whatever). In which case, I'm afraid, they're obviously adding value and its no longer the same public domain feed.

Seriously - why go through C-SPAN?

Re:huh?

[Baricom]

Seriously - why go through C-SPAN?

Because no other organization has demonstrated both the financial means to run leased lines, and the willingness to carry the programming gavel-to-gavel. I had difficulty locating the particulars of gaining access, though this site has some information about how it works in the Senate.

Unfortunately, TV is very expensive to broadcast - it always has been, and likely always will be. I don't know what the best solution would be, but for the moment, C-SPAN is clearly the most effective way for the general public to gain access.

Re:huh?

[rjstanford]

In that case they're obviously adding value, and should -- in my opinion -- be able to regain copyright and control over that data. Especially since an unencumbered feed is available, if difficult to access.

After all, taking data that's difficult to use/access and transforming/relocating it into a format that's signficantly more usable for the general public -- especially since they don't "use up" the available free feed -- is almost exactly the "services-based" profit model for open-source software and, IMO, a very legitimate way for them to make a living.

Re:huh?

[Kadin2048]

In that case they're obviously adding value, and should -- in my opinion -- be able to regain copyright and control over that data.

Uh, no -- that's a terrible idea. The expense involved doesn't buy you a new copyright, if the content is Public Domain, and you're not somehow incorporating it into a new Work, then it's still public domain when it comes out the other end.

What you're talking about is exactly the same sort of a "broadcaster's copyright" that WIPO (read: big media companies) wants to push on us, where they could take things that either aren't copywritable, or are expired, or are in the Public Domain, and re-copyright them just by broadcasting them.

This would allow the person who controls the source, even if that source is in the Public Domain, to have a perpetual copyright, because they could license their broadcasts under terms that would require you to delete or destroy them before they expired (or use DRM that enforced this, which it would be a crime to circumvent).

The point of Public Domain material, is that you can reproduce it and when it comes out the other end, it's still public domain. If you can take public domain and "wrap" it in another layer of copyright which actually taints and eliminates it's public-domain-ness, then you've just gutted the entire concept of having material that's not under copyright. You're saying then, that only the original copy of a public domain material is not under copyright, and that anytime anyone copies that, a new copyright is put in place. That's not how it's supposed to work. Copyright follows the information/content, not some physical artifact.

Anyone asking for a "broadcast copyright" is effectively asking for a perpetual copyright, because that's how it would end up. I think Jack Valenti is a scumbag, but at least he has the balls to come out and actually say that's what he wants.

Re:huh?

[rjstanford]

And yet to a certain extent that is true. Let's look at a book that contains content that's in the public domain, such as a copy of Hamlet. I cannot simply photocopy that book and sell the copies. If I do that, I'm profiting from the added value of typesetting, additional content, et cetera. I can, however, take the content from that book and re-release it myself. If C-SPAN adds value to the feed, even by just adding graphics that identify the speakers, that makes it a different product than the one that is publicly accessible.

This would allow the person who controls the source, even if that source is in the Public Domain, to have a perpetual copyright, because they could license their broadcasts under terms that would require you to delete or destroy them before they expired (or use DRM that enforced this, which it would be a crime to circumvent)

But that's not what's happening here. You have one company taking a publicly available feed that they do not hold copyright on, adding (small, but measurable) value to it by doing visual modifications, and passing it along. There's nothing whatsoever limiting you from going to the source, just as they did. Nothing at all. The original material still exists.

Re:huh?

[cpt kangarooski]

And yet to a certain extent that is true.

And yet, to a complete extent, you're wrong.

Let's look at a book that contains content that's in the public domain, such as a copy of Hamlet. I cannot simply photocopy that book and sell the copies. If I do that, I'm profiting from the added value of typesetting, additional content, et cetera.

No, so long as no original material has been added, you can copy away. Typesetting isn't generally copyrightable, due to a lack of originality, and it's difficult to imagine a version of Hamlet where it would be. Additional content couldn't be copied, but we weren't talking about anything new, we were talking about Hamlet.

If C-SPAN adds value to the feed, even by just adding graphics that identify the speakers, that makes it a different product than the one that is publicly accessible.

But not enough value to support a copyright. It's not enough to add something, it has to be something copyrightable. That means it has to be original, and that means it has to be creative and not copied. Overlaying the names of the people speaking to video of a committee meeting is not even slightly creative. It could arguably be done creatively (Terry Gilliam could do it), but it isn't being done creatively at the moment. This has Feist written all over it.

You have one company taking a publicly available feed that they do not hold copyright on, adding (small, but measurable) value to it by doing visual modifications, and passing it along. There's nothing whatsoever limiting you from going to the source, just as they did. Nothing at all. The original material still exists.


Yes. And since they are mostly only providing public domain material, nothing prevents you from using that public domain material no matter where you happen to get it from. Even if we gave CSPAN the benefit of the doubt, all you'd have to do would be to overprint your names of people over where they did it, and you'd be set. Public domain material is public domain material always; you never have to go back to the original source of it.

Re:huh?

[bigmammoth]

There's nothing whatsoever limiting you from going to the source, just as they did. Nothing at all. The original material still exists.

actually its pretty hard to get press credentials... we would love to put a box in there and get direct access to the public domain feed, its just that its very very hard to get access as they are very uptight about credentials. And even if we did manage to get press credentials their a good deal of costs associated with access to that feed. You have to run fiber over to another building for example. See Carl Malamud public memory plan for an outline of the costs.

at this point in time C-SPAN & the low quality government webcasts are all we have access to as individuals...

Given that flip

[Maxo-Texas]

I would say someone woke up to the danger of their position on the speaker of the house's use of their video.

They probably said "You can't do that" then realized they could lose their license to print money if they kept pushing that position.

Public domain

[bhmit1]

The question remains whether videos of governmental proceedings should be public domain by default or whether the attribution requirement is reasonable in the face of easy video copying and distribution.

I'd say that the government cannot require a license on their proceedings since their work is implicitly public domain (except when those darn national security requirements get in the way). But if an organization (c-span is owned by the cable companies, not the government) that provides the content decides to place restrictions on their video, especially if it's just to receive credit for their effort, then we shouldn't have any problem with that.

To put it another way, I enjoy photography myself, and if I take a picture of a public building, the choice should be mine as to whether I provide it to the world without restriction or if I try to make some money for my efforts.

Re:Public domain

[Chmcginn]

I'd say that the government cannot require a license on their proceedings since their work is implicitly public domain (except when those darn national security requirements get in the way).

Technically, it's "even when", not "except". The difference is that classified material is not to be released to people without any approrpriate security clearance & a need to know. After all, when someone leaks classified info, they're not being charged under copyright law.

Re:Public domain

[VValdo]

if I take a picture of a public building, the choice should be mine as to whether I provide it to the world without restriction or if I try to make some money for my efforts.

...except, of course, when the building (or other structure) in question is trademarked, in which case you may not make money from your photo without getting sued by the building's trademark owner.

W

Re:Public domain

[bhmit1]

Thanks for the danheller.com link, great site. And point well made about the trademarks, though I don't think that's going to be an issue with what c-span is broadcasting.

Re:Public domain

[Anonymous Coward]

since this is essentially a record of government proceedings, what should be happening is that c-span should have a contract with the federal government to produce these videos and the resulting product should be entered directly into public domain.

Re:Public domain

[cpt kangarooski]

Odd choice of cites. The court felt that the building design was probably not trademarkable, but naturally had to boot it back down to be properly decided. This is not to say that it's impossible, but it isn't easy or common, and given that trademarks have their limits (e.g. trademark fair use), it generally isn't a big concern.

Re:Public domain

[bhmit1]

since this is essentially a record of government proceedings, what should be happening is that c-span should have a contract with the federal government to produce these videos and the resulting product should be entered directly into public domain.

"Should" philosophically, you're absolutely right. "Should" practically, I'd rather see tax dollars being spent on the national debt, unless c-span were to abuse their privileges, which I don't see occurring.

priceless

[mastershake_phd]

A congressperson being accused of copyright infringement. Why the hell does a company own the copyright to the Americans peoples only source of in depth legislative coverage? I like many assumed they were a government agency. Do they even show commercials? Whoever is responsible for this should hang, or something unpleasant.

Re:priceless

[Sneakernets]

Remember Dubya's iPod?

Re:priceless

[bhmit1]

Why the hell does a company own the copyright to the Americans peoples only source of in depth legislative coverage?

After the $5,000 bill for a toilet seat, do you really want to know how much it would cost the government to run a television feed and pay for the air time? We've got better things to spend money on when c-span does a perfectly fine job for 99.999% of the country.

Re:priceless

[Dr. Eggman]

A company owns the copyright because they're the ones recording it. The government doesn't care about broadcasting proceedings and the only difference between C-SPAN and CNN is the news they cover (maybe a sense of style too.) If you don't like the idea of a company having a copyright on the material they recorded, then you can just record it yourself (after jumping through who knows how many hoops.)

Of course, you might want to form a company, since you yourself can't cover it all...

And you'll need some way to spread the costs of operating that company. Better find some sort of advertising setup since you don't want to sell what you recorded...

And since your recording government proceedings in a droll, yet mesmerizing way comparable to public broadcasting, you'll want to get your company's name out there to show advertisers your not a government office...

Well, your already giving away all kinds of content, maybe people who use it will be nice enough to acknowledge your effort to keep the ad money flowing...

And you'll need a catch name and motto. How about "Spanning the gap between citizens and the government"? Citizen-Span?

Re:priceless

[Odin_Tiger]

The copyright is on the recording, not the event. The same thing comes up in the music business all the time...it's possible for an artist to own the copyright to a song, but a label to own copyright to a particular recording of that song. If the artist ever leaves the label, they can keep selling that record without penalty, and the artist can re-record it or continue to play it live without penalty.

For the purposes of this case, for instance, C-SPAN can't tell you to take down a site with a transcript of proceedings they recorded, but the actual recording is, in fact, theirs. They paid for the camera, cameraman, film, etc. The content is public property, but the recording is not.

Re:priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

The copyright is on the recording, not the event.

Really? I thought when someone records you they own you and your soul, thanks for clearing that up for me.

--
POST SOMETHING YOU FASCIST!

Re:priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

After the $5,000 bill for a toilet seat, do you really want to know how much it would cost the government to run a television feed and pay for the air time? We've got better things to spend money on when c-span does a perfectly fine job for 99.999% of the country.

Why can't congress just contract the job out to the lowest bidder rather than granting C-SPAN exclusive access?

Re:priceless

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash: it is not true that 99.999% of the country has cable and/or satellite. Many rural areas don't have cable, and many people (including myself) choose not to get pay TV, either because of the cost or simply to make a statement. With C-SPAN content on YouTube, I can ***BUFFERING*** download it and ***BUFFERING*** watch it without ***BUFFERING*** interruption, which I can't do from the C-SPAN web site itself.

Also, the government would not have to pay for airtime. Who would it pay, anyway?

Finally, the U.S. government already runs a TV and radio station. With content in 44 languages! You may also have heard of the BBC.

Reasonable

[Steve B]

whether the attribution requirement is reasonable in the face of easy video copying and distribution

The hard part is having somebody run the cameras. Asking for attribution in exchange for using the results seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Re:Reasonable

[mikelieman]

And it's not like the C-SPAN logo isn't prominently displayed on the bottom of he screen and on the crawl in the first place. It's like it attributes itself.

Nothing to see here

[Pyrrhic Diarrhea]

Someone slapping copyright issues onto what is the public's business? Gee golly, anything but that! This has happened before, will happen again. Move along. This doesn't mean it isn't right, but it happens all the time. Smacks of profiteering to me, although I can't follow the money myself. I'm sure it's there somewhere.

Re:Nothing to see here

[tygt]

The White House is a public building. If I take a picture of it, I own the copyright on the picture.

The Grand Canyon is public. Similarly, pictures of the Grand Canyon that I take have my copyright.

So, why wouldn't a videotape of a public function belong the he who took the videotape?

Copyright/Politics

[dmcooper]

I think if everyone pursued members of Congress with the vigor that the *IAA does whenever they broke copyright law - we might would see some changes in that law. Don't hold your breath for major companies to make waves however.

'reasonable in the face of easy copying' ?

[ScentCone]

If attribution for works has ever been reasonable (which of course it is), how can the increase in the ease of copying the material make it less reasonable to give credit to the person or entity that did the work, or had the creative spark or skill to make the material desireable to use? That entire notion - that it's just so easy to lay hands on something now, that it feels by comparison like too much trouble to fret about violating someone's copyright... nonsense. The same technology may or may not make it easier to produce the material in the first place, but just because it's a couple of mouse clicks instead of tape swapping in order to rip it off doesn't change the fact that someone else did make the investment in time, equipment, personnel, etc., to make the material available. A 'courtesy of' credit is just that much easier to put up, with all that time that's saved by ease of acquistion online.

Re:'reasonable in the face of easy copying' ?

[cpt kangarooski]

If attribution for works has ever been reasonable (which of course it is)

I disagree. Attribution should not be required by law. It serves no necessary purpose. It may be polite, it may be useful in scholarly works or news media, and where the material is copyrighted, it may be required by the copyright holder in exchange for his permission (if needed). But it ought not to be manditory; no one should be compelled to thank or even credit anyone, in every circumstance, whether they used someone's work or not.

It does belong to the public

[Cracked Pottery]

It is the correct decision. I can't imagine any other outcome. However there should be no license for public hearings of any kind. It must be completely in the public domain. C-SPAN, if they have any business model, should be only first sale to cable operators, which no further encumbrances for any copying.

Does that mean we'll get Colbert's speech again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't C-SPAN remove Youtube's copy of Colbert's blistering attack on Preznit Bush?

Sirius Radio lost C-SPAN over control issue

[colfer]

Sirius Sat. Radio wanted to be able to pre-empt their C-SPAN channel for sports events. C-SPAN said no, so Sirius canceled the channel. XM Sat. Radio still has C-SPAN, which also broadcasts on AM and FM in Washington.

The timeless question: Who benefits?

[jbn-o]

Carl Malamud wrote an insightful letter which addresses this issue. Part of that letter reads:

C-SPAN is a publicly-supported charity. Your only shareholders are the American public. Your donors received considerable tax relief in making donations to you. You and your staff were well paid for your excellent work. Congressional hearings are of strikingly important public value, and aggressive moves to prevent any fair use of the material is double-dipping on your part. For C-SPAN and for the American public record, the right thing to do is to release all of that material back into the public domain where it belongs.

C-SPAN could regularly upload broadcast-quality raw footage to The Internet Archive (archive.org). Archive.org could transcode the material into a variety of formats (including Ogg Vorbis+Theora which they're now doing for videos) and we can all enjoy the works we're paying for through tax relief and cable TV subscription. Certainly C-SPAN is taking a step in the right direction, but if this footage should be in the public domain, a "liberal" copyright license (as C-SPAN puts it) isn't good enough.

So long as we, the American public, are covering C-SPAN's bills (more than that, actually, as Malamud points out in his letter), we should democratically decide what to do with C-SPAN's programming—all of it, not just the Congressional hearings and floor footage. Perhaps this could take the form of C-SPAN (or their parent corporation) working for hire, thus giving us the power of copyright in all of those works. We could then decide to forgo that power, place all of their work into the public domain, and relieve ourselves of ever having to read another embarrassing legalistic threat when anyone uses C-SPAN footage for any purpose (including commercial use). But certainly what C-SPAN is proposing simply doesn't go far enough down the path they're headed on.

Re:The timeless question: Who benefits?

[massysett]

The only problem with your logic is that the assertion that "C-SPAN is a publicly-supported charity" is flat out, one-hundred-percent, plain wrong.

"C-SPAN is a private, non-profit company, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a public service. Our mission is to provide public access to the political process. C-SPAN receives no government funding; operations are funded by fees paid by cable and satellite affiliates who carry C-SPAN programming." --C-SPAN website

If you ever watch C-SPAN, they will frequently say "Created by Cable, offered as a public service." This is not just a line. That bias comes out in minor ways, too (their website used to have a link "Get cable Internet!")

Re:The timeless question: Who benefits?

[jbn-o]

We all know that C-SPAN gets money from cable subscribers (which is why C-SPAN stumps for "cable internet"), not direct government payout, but there's more to it then that. Carl Malamud says that C-SPAN gets tax relief. So someone pays for the things C-SPAN would have to pay for with taxes. Perhaps this means city and state funds are paying for C-SPAN's water, waste treatment, and roads that service C-SPAN's studios. To find out how powerful this is in another context, that of Wal-Mart, I recommend you watch Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Tax incentives help businesses decide where to set up shop; towns know this, so they give far more than they should in the hope the business will go there and won't screw them later.

C-SPAN saves considerably because they don't have the same costs as other broadcast firms when they set up an on-location shoot. Here the taxpayer helps C-SPAN again by paying for some of the things C-SPAN uses: cameras in the House and Senate, and building renovations to add more space for media, to name a couple.

C-SPAN is also making money by claiming copyright on the things it records, which allows to commercially license that footage. This copyright power also comes at a price for the public: C-SPAN bullies people out of using this footage without commercially licensing it. If there were no copyright on these works at all, C-SPAN wouldn't be have this bullying power.

So, it seems to me that Malamud's claim is not "flat out, one-hundred-percent, plain wrong" nor do you provide any evidence to refute what he says. Not receiving government funding doesn't acknowledge the myriad other ways in which the public helps C-SPAN pay their bills. Also, it's not a good idea to take a corporation's word at face value because sometimes businesses lie.

I'm not against paying for C-SPAN, but I don't want to pay into a private tyranny. I want them to work for me creating, recording, archiving, and distributing public affairs works that I can do as I like with later. I think this meets all the needs of everyone involved: they get a living wage doing what they do now, I get programming I want with no strings attached.

Finally, the question of who pays for C-SPAN is almost a distraction from a more important question: should C-SPAN be able to assert a copyright on these recordings in the first place? How much of a "public service" is it if we cable subscribers and taxpayers have to comply with restrictive licensing on top of paying C-SPAN's bills? Should we tolerate corporate welfare? Is it in the public's interest when a government official speaks in their official capacity on a copyrighted show?

Re:The timeless question: Who benefits?

[iowannaski]

The question shouldn't be, "Why aren't C-SPAN's important recordings in the public domain?" It should be, "If it's so damn important, why isn't the government making its own recordings?"

Re:The timeless question: Who benefits?

[jbn-o]

People are willing to buy copies of C-SPAN recordings, license them for commercial reuse, and countless programs air edited snippets of C-SPAN footage. So the works are in themselves valuable.

The government's unwillingness to make and distribute these recordings themselves means that the recordings aren't necessarily in the public domain and it also means that Americans have far less democratic control over the creation and dissemination of the recordings. It doesn't take much imagination to see how these could be reasons for outsourcing the work to a third party, such as C-SPAN.

Does Copyright apply?

[Herkum01]

I fail to see how a video of government officials doing their job would imply copyright protections to further the 'art or science' which is what copyright was supposed to protect.

No copyright

[russotto]

If push came to shove, I have doubts that C-Span would be able to successfully claim a copyright on any particular event they covered. There's still no "sweat of the brow" copyright in the US, and C-SPAN's original input to its footage is near-nonexistent. They could win based on editing and selection, but they could lose everything -- which is probably a large reason for this "liberalized" copyright policy. They don't want this to go to court, particularly not against politically powerful people with tough lawyers.

A simple question

[gr8_phk]

1) Can anyone film the proceedings, or is C-SPAN given special permission? If they get special permission, then they should be stripped of all rights including the ability to require attribution. Otherwise we then move on to the next question.
2) Does C-SPAN send someone in to shoot the video, or are they government cameras with C-SPAN just picking up a feed and rebroadcasting? If it's the former, then sure they should get attribution. If the later, they should not.
Since I don't know the situation, I'd guess the answer to #1 is special permission so they should not be able to force attribution. If that's not the case then I suspect the answer to #2 is that they do all the work and it's OK to claim copyright. But like a lot of ./ers I'm just guessing :-)

Re:A simple question

[vrmlguy]

2) Does C-SPAN send someone in to shoot the video, or are they government cameras with C-SPAN just picking up a feed and rebroadcasting? If it's the former, then sure they should get attribution. If the later, they should not.

It depends. Congress provides the cameras and crews for the floor of the House and Senate; CPAN sends someone in to shoot comittee meetings and the like. Of course, CPAN has (up until now, at least) aggressively defended its claim of "ownership" of all of that footage.

Re:A simple question

[zappepcs]

http://cpan.org/ CPAN is for PERL, C-SPAN is for swine.... had to be said

Re:A simple question

[PatHMV]

C-Span has only ever claimed ownership of the committee footage, which they recorded at their own expense. They have never claimed ownership of of footage of the floor, because that footage was created by the U.S. government and is thus not susceptible of copyright.

Re:A simple question

[vrmlguy]

C-SPAN has, in the past, aggressively asserted ownership of the C-SPAN "bug" that they overlay on the floor footage, as well as the captions that identify who is speaking. Metavid was forced to overlay the "bug" with one of their own that says, "Public Domain". (See http://metavid.ucsc.edu/wiki/index.php/Democratizi ng_the_Archive:_An_Open_Interface_for_Mediation#Me tavid.E2.80.99s_Legal_Framework for details and other discussion.)

We paid for the content

[Maximum Prophet]

The American people paid for the producers, screenwriters, directors, and actors in this particular film. The cable companies paid for the cameras, operators and the "film."

There should be a compromise here. C-Span gets complete copyright for the 2 months, people who use the footage must provide attribution for the first 2 years, and after that, it's public domain.

Re:We paid for the content

[cpt kangarooski]

I disagree. I think it'd be better to have Congress simply have their own staff (probably via the Library of Congress) film everything so that it's public domain to begin with. Governmental transparency is an important job for government, and leaving this to outside parties with conflicting interests is not acceptable. There's a similar reason for why the government should effectively put Lexis and West out of business, by providing original legal materials themselves, at no charge, to everyone who wants them.

Re:We paid for the content

[Maximum Prophet]

Good point. Although it would cost extra money, compared to the rest of the government, it would be a drop in the bucket to publish all the laws and all the processes that lead up to those laws to anyone who wanted them. There was a time in ancient Rome, when all the laws were carved in stone around the Senate building, free for anyone to read them. Using the Library of Congress and the Internet, we can go back to that ideal, where all the law is free for anyone to read.

Question: Which laws must you follow? Answer: All of them.

• How many of us actually know all the law?
• How many people break laws they don't know about?
• How do you know this?
• Prove it. (extra credit)

Attribution is not just reasonable

[peacefinder]

Good for them. The attribution requirement is, I think, a good idea. They put the effort into capturing the event, so they should get the credit.

But more than that, they have the option of editorial control over the content they capture and process. If they pass it through unchanged, it's helpful for us to have attribution so that we can learn what honest brokers they are. And if they alter the content, it's also helpful for us to know the source of the alteration so that we can judge the merit of the edits. Attribution actually enhances public trust and access here.

(Of course, if c-span is the only authorized recorder of these events, then I think there may be more to discuss. But if others can record the events too, then I think this is a great balance.)

Political vs. Commercial uses

[mi]

which will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution

Why do they exclude commercial uses, while allowing political? Personally, I prefer merchants to politicians...

Remember the "No Call List"? Businesses must check it, but politicians don't have to (and their automatic calls are getting increasingly annoying with each elections). At the time, the discrepancy was explained by politicians crafting the exceptions for themselves...

But why is C-SPAN doing it?

Perl?

[cerberusss]

Heh. Am I the only Perl hacker here who glossed over the S in C-SPAN and just read CPAN?

Liberalized media

[tverbeek]

"C-SPAN is introducing a liberalized..."

Bah! More liberal media, undermining the country, blah blah grumble etc....

Nothing theoretical about it...

[bwcbwc]

Each network's footage of presidential press conferences, state of the union address, inaugurals, etc. is copyright by the particular network.

Copyright doesn't protect "effort."

[Kadin2048]

Exactly. If you want it for 'free', get up off your lazy butts and go tape it yourself. If you want it for the low, low price of telling where it came from, you can now use C-Span's media.

No, the real question here is whether going out and taping something is a creative enough act to warrant a separate Copyright on the recording, than is on the original performance or Work. (Which really boils down to, it the taping some sort of creative act, in and of itself, or is it more like mechanical transcription?)

Copyright doesn't protect effort. I can spend a lifetime compiling a database of recipes, or sports scores, or photocopying/photographing old rare books, and anyone who wants to can use the information out of that (in the case of the recipe book, the layout and narrative text in the recipes might be protected, but not the recipe itself). Nobody is really interested in how much work or effort C-SPAN put into taping things. That doesn't, and shouldn't, earn them a new copyright.

I think it's a hugely dangerous and generally Bad Idea, to create a new layer of copyright protection every time someone mechanically reproduces, copies, or records something. We already have enough complexity, and there are ways that a "reproduction copyright" could be easily (ab)used to lock up works where the originals are unavailable, indefinitely. (Viz.: Disney, who could simply only release recordings of things they have in their "vault" under licenses that don't allow reproduction and which force the destruction of the recordings before their copyright could expire; even though the subject of the recordings would be in the public domain, the recording/retransmission would not be, and thus it would be under a perpetual Copyright.) By recopyrighting mechanical reproductions that do not contain any creative input, you allow whoever possesses the "master" copy to dodge the Public Domain indefinitely.

We need to draw a clear line in the sand as to what things are creative enough to warrant (re)protection, and what are not. Setting up a camera and pointing it at someone, ought not buy you a new copyright on the finished recording. I say this, as someone who spent years lugging a BetaSP camera around -- there's effort there, but it's not creating a new Work, it's just recording one that's already there, however ephemeral. Now, if that video were then taken and edited into something else, that finished, edited composition would have a new Copyright, obviously, but little individual slices of it wouldn't (because they'd be public domain), in the same way I could assemble a photo-montage out of public-domain photos and have the whole thing copyrighted, but not the individual photos inside, if you were to copy just a single one of those and remove it from the whole.

Re:Copyright doesn't protect "effort."

[Baricom]

I agree with most of what you're saying here and elsewhere on this story, but I can see problems with rejecting the idea of mechanical copyright entirely - it makes the line between a protected work and an unprotectable work fuzzier.

You say that "setting up a camera and pointing it at someone" shouldn't be protected, but is there a limit to this? Does it matter what the subject is? The environment? Does an EFP qualify for copyright?*

Let's think about still photographers for a minute. I think it's pretty clear that certain kinds of photographs should be protected, but should somebody who points a SLR camera at somebody and takes a picture not qualify for copyright? I would argue that the photos that appear in a newspaper and those that appear in a TV broadcast should be treated equivalently for purposes of copyright protection.

Honestly, I don't know how I feel about these questions. I think there are valid points to be made either way.

I agree that a broadcasting right is patently unfair, however - even if the broadcaster adds value by adding CGs, as C-SPAN does.

(* Non-TV Slashdotters: An EFP is a recording or broadcast created by switching between two or more cameras in real-time.)

Re:Copyright doesn't protect "effort."

[cpt kangarooski]

but I can see problems with rejecting the idea of mechanical copyright entirely - it makes the line between a protected work and an unprotectable work fuzzier.

Like it or lump it, the Constitution requires that works be creative in order to be copyrightable. There is no such thing as what you're calling a 'mechanical copyright' (which isn't the best term, IMO; I keep thinking of mechanical royalties). Merely turning on a camera isn't quite enough. Rather, the picture taker needs to have some creativity in his choice of subject, lighting, camera angle, color palette, etc. This isn't difficult, and indeed, only a modicum of creativity is required, not a great deal. But there does have to be enough, though that's just a little bit. This was all basically settled over a century ago when the first court cases went up regarding whether photographs were copyrightable.

Re:Copyright doesn't protect "effort."

[Baricom]

I apologize; I should have been more careful with my wording. I'm fairly clear on what the law is now, and I was speaking hypothetically about whether the current standard is fair.

And does it mean

[Mateo_LeFou]

I might have been right about a prediction I made earlier today?

C-SPAN is biting the had that feeds it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me cynical, however, I suspect that C-Span's change of heart had more to do with the possibility of the C-SPAN budget being "adjusted" by an unhappy Congress, than anything else.

you all are missing something important

[Mateo_LeFou]

Namely: It wasn't CSPAN that went after Pelosi for posting vids. Summary is incorrect.

"This follows the network claiming Speaker of the House Pelosi's use of C-Span videos on her site violated their copyright."

Linked article makes clear: "The House Republican Study Committee is accusing the California Democrat of illegally pilfering video content from C-Span and using it on that blog for partisan purposes."

The RSC was pist, not CSPAN

What brought this on?

[Anonymous Coward]

So was this:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/26/ripping_off_t he_cong.html
the catalyst, or was something else?

Depends on the license.

[jbn-o]

It should, but we'll need to see the exact license C-SPAN picks to be sure. According to what C-SPAN promises, under the new license C-SPAN "will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution" (quoted from their press release). If Metavid distributes the covered C-SPAN footage in compliance with these terms, Metavid will not get any more copyright harassment from C-SPAN.

mash-ups

[zobier]

This will make for some interesting re-mixes and mash-ups.

slight correction...

[bigmammoth]

C-SPAN has made broad claims of copyright without being specific in their take down requests .. see the dem bloggers situation in particular

For our readers and members this means that we will no longer post videos or information from C-SPAN including Senate speeches

but their present stance is a step away from such actions and a step in the right direction. Metavid is applauds their efforts but ofcourse metavid will continue its efforts to maximize the freedom of participants. This means capturing the public domain feeds and putting them online in free and open formats, freely distributing the entirety of the meta-data (close captions, person tags etc), and freely distributing all of the software which mediates that meta data.