Federal Officials and YouTube Nearing a Deal

GovTechGuy writes "The federal government is on the verge of reaching an agreement with YouTube that would allow agencies to make official use of the popular video-sharing service. A coalition of federal agencies led by the General Service Administration's Office of Citizen Services has been negotiating with Google, YouTube's parent company, since summer 2008 on new terms that would allow agencies to establish their own channels on the site. Agencies have not been [allowed] to post videos to YouTube (although many already have) because under the current terms of service, people who post content are subject to their state's libel laws. Federal agencies must adhere to federal law. On Tuesday, government officials said the negotiations were 'very close' to being completed."

Comments

Oh joy

[rockNme2349]

Wait, you mean it will be like C-Span, but whenever i want? I don't know if youtube has the bandwidth.

Re:Oh joy

[nsolon]

Wait, you mean it will be like C-Span, but whenever i want? I don't know if youtube has the bandwidth.

Believe it or not, that site already exists. http://cspanjunkie.org/

Re:Not Engrish

[Ian Alexander]

You know, since the editors never do any actual editing, maybe it's time to call them something else.

I already do. However, it's not polite so I won't repeat it here. ;)

In bed with Google

[basementman]

Why does the federal government need an official video channel anyway? They should post their public domain videos on their own site and allow others to distribute them to youtube, liveleak, hulu etc. Giving youtube favoritism just adds to Google's ever growing monopoly, even if they generally act ethically. The idea of having a incredibly powerful company like google, essentially get humped by the federal government worries me.