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Lessig Launches Open Transition Principles
soDean writes "The Principles for an Open Transition and a petition were co-launched by Lawrence Lessig, Mozilla, and the Participatory Culture Foundation today. This was in reaction to the announcement that Obama would be posting his transition videos to YouTube.
The petition encourages Obama to publish his transition videos with open licenses, make them available for download, and preferably use royalty free/open video formats and standards. Unless YouTube makes some radical changes, the videos will need to be hosted elsewhere."
If you get work of the federal government from the government, there's no copyright and you can republish as will, or even make a derivative work.
If you make a derivative work, such as adding a C-SPAN logo, or translating the file into a new format, you own the copyright on it. Don't like it? Go get the work from the government yourself and make your own.
Can you? For me, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And even when it does work, I've still got that stupid Play symbol superimposed over the video after I click it.
Since when is there an "Office of the President Elect" let alone a seal. Whose ego is driving this anyway?
First, he isn't even the President elect until the 15th (or whenever the electors cast their vote) though the vote is not in doubt, it just is factual to declare the title is not applicable yet.
Second, there is no office of the President Elect, there is no authority other than what the current President grants; I doubt it is even legal for the sitting President to do so.
I don't want to sound like part of the tinfoil hat crowd but all this wrapping oneself in an air of authority/royalty really is marketing gone amok or an ego gone amok. I hope its the marketing side because if its the later we are not in for a good four years.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This week the videos are available in MPEG4 format. Is that open enough?
http://change.gov/newsroom/blog/
John S. Jacob * jsjacob@iamnota.com * www.iamnota.com * pgp: ac6ace17
I just want to see open and honest government
I hate to disillusion you, young fellow, but I've been voting since Nixon was in office and I think you'll see unicorns before you see an open and honest US Federal Government.
Free Martian Whores!
I know it was rhetorical, but the options are:
Video codecs:
- Dirac -- possibly patent-encumbered, but officially free to use
- Theora -- might be untested, but claims to be patent-free.
Audio codecs:
- Vorbis -- sounds as good as AAC on most listening tests; open/free/pantent-free.
- FLAC -- lossless, and as free as Vorbis.
Container formats:
- Ogg/ogm -- same camp as Vorbis and Theora
- Matroska -- uses some binary-xml format for metadata. Seems to support at least as much as Ogg. Not sure what the legal status is, but I suspect it's free. Popular with anime.
Those are the good free ones. Of course, most of us also have high-quality FOSS players for h.264 and AAC delivered as mov, mp4, mkv, even avi (yuck) -- so practically, the biggest change would be to offer it in just about anything other than Flash/Silverlight. (Or the latest version of WMA, for some reason.)
I'd personally prefer vorbis, mkv, and probably Theora, but that's less important than having a reasonable stand-alone (possibly higher-quality) version.
As for your other hypothetical, that's probably how it would go down. Then again, people installed Silverlight to watch the Olympics, so maybe people would install some free codecs to watch the President.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
A work of the United States government, as defined by United States copyright law, is "a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person's official duties."[1] The term only applies to the work of the federal government, not state or local governments. In general, under section 105 of the Copyright Act,[2] such works are not entitled to domestic copyright protection under U.S. law, sometimes referred to as "noncopyright." As an exception to section 105, 15 U.S.C. Â 290e authorizes U.S. Secretary of Commerce to secure copyright for works produced by the Department of Commerce under the Standard Reference Data Act.[3]
In addition, many publications of the U.S. government contain protectable works authored by others (e.g., patent applications, Securities and Exchange Commission filings, public comments on regulations, etc.), and this rule does not necessarily apply to the creative content of those works.
Also, certain works, particularly logos of government agencies, while not copyrightable, are still protected by other laws similar in effect to trademark laws. Such laws are intended to protect indicators of source or quality. The Central Intelligence Agency logo, for example, cannot be used without permission. This is intended to prevent the appearance of endorsement, under the CIA Act of 1949.[4]
The federal government can hold copyrights that are transferred to it. For example, in 1837, the federal government purchased former U.S. President James Madison's manuscripts from his widow, Dolley Madison, for $30,000;[5] if this is construed as covering copyright as well as the physical papers, it would be an example of such a transfer.[6] More common examples are works of independent contractors, where the contract specifies that the copyright is to be transferred to the government.
This would also apply to works for hire. Government owns the copyright to the contracted work, but it does not become public domain. Further, as noted, the rule only applies to the federal government and not the government as a whole.
:) The wiki page cites good sources.
I mentioned this in part above, but without references. Seems like it was about time to do so
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!