There have been a few stories recently about C-Span and whether or not its broadcasts are copyrighted. (See list at end of this post.) This started when Republicans claimed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi illegally posted C-Span video clips of House floor footage. Later, they withdrew that complaint after some clarification by C-Span of their policies. The clarifications led to more confusion, though. Now Nancy Scola has posted a very useful and clear article about the issue:
- Who Owns What C-Span Airs?, Nancy Scola, The OpenHouse Project, February 27th, 2007.
This kind of issue will undoubtedly continue to be important to the extent that privatization of government communication expands and private companies and politicians attempt to use “intellectual property” law to constrain access of public information to the public.
More:
- Congressional Video In Vogue, Tech Daily Dose, February 16, 2007.
- C-Span’s IP Policies For Congress Called Inconsistent, by Andrew Noyes, National Journal’s Technology Daily, Feb 16, 2007 PM edition, [subscription required]
- Which Videos Are Protected? Lawmakers Get a Lesson, by Noam Cohen, The New York Times, February 26, 2007.
- MetaVid (a project which seeks to capture, stream, archive and facilitate real-time collective [re]mediation of legislative proceedings.)
- Ripping (off) the Congressional video record by Carl Malamud.
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