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

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?

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: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.

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: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.