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C-SPAN provides more access, but wants to retain control
As Peggy pointed out here yesterday (C-SPAN Announces New Copyright Policy), C-SPAN has changed its policies to make it easier to use videos of official events sponsored by Congress and federal agencies. This will make C-SPAN videos of congressional hearings and press briefings, federal agency hearings, and presidential events at the White House available for re-use under two conditions: "...will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution." [emphasis by C-SPAN in its press release]
This is a very interesting issue for government information specialists and not just for the obvious reasons (better public access to more information more easily, access to rich audio-visual content, etc.).
It is also of interest because it raises questions of control. C-SPAN is careful to retain its control of the videos as if it owned them. As Liza Sabater has pointed out (News from C-SPAN posted to Open House Project group by Liza Sabater, Mar 7, 12:45 pm), by only allowing non-commercial use, C-SPAN prohibits use by many bloggers and independent citizen activists:
Bloggers who function as corporations and take in advertising would not be able to use the footage.... If I wanted to use content for parody or a mashup I would not be able to use it because of the little detail of for-profit incorporation.
There is some additional discussion on the Open House Project group discussion list as to the exact legal implications of this, but I believe that the most important point for government information specialists is that C-SPAN is acting as if it owns and can control access to and specify use of this content. While it is very good news that C-SPAN is making this content more freely usable, it is bad news that C-SPAN is not relinquishing its control or "ownership" of the content.
As Liza points out eloquently (Chalk one up for fair use: C-SPAN has agreed to loosen the copyright of the public domain footage they use, CultureKitchen, March 7, 2007):
If they are indeed a non-profit, they have been quite bullish about the "copyright" they hold on the public domain footage they broadcast. Basically they've made it impossible to use congressional video footage by having a few seconds of original content a the beginning of all congressional videos, slapping their logo on it and claiming, then it's their original content.
This should sound familiar to anyone who has dealt with private publishers who repackage government documents, slap a title page on their versions, and claim copyright. We also see repackagers of CRS reports claiming proprietary rights to those reports (Congress has created a bootleg market for CRS Reports, jajacobs 2007-02-20) and even to lists of titles of those reports!
So, to me, the C-SPAN issue is another example of the same fight for control of government information that we have seen before and continue to see today. Even GPO wants to provide government information on a "cost recovery" basis as if it owned that information. The fight with C-SPAN, with publishers, and with the government itself is not over.
Background on recent events:
- Who Owns What C-SPAN Airs?
- Malamud Challenges C-SPAN
- C-SPAN Announces New Policy for Online Video "C-SPAN Takes Lead In Making Video Of Congressional Hearings, White House And Other Federal Events More Widely Available To The Online Community." C-SPAN Press Release, March 7, 2007
1000 libraries can help Open the House
The OpenHouse Project (a project of the Sunlight Foundation) is discussing ways to "open up the House." It will suggest changes "where the internet and Congressional procedures come together" to identify areas where Congress can open up and allow all of us to have more information and access." It is a temporary working group designed to make recommendations to Congress on how to begin making the House of Representatives more open and facilitate communications.
The volunteers at FGI are participating in this discussion and today we sent the following message to the OpenHouse project group suggesting how FDLP libraries can help with this process. This and other discussions can be found on the group's Google Groups page (groups.google.com/group/openhouseproject).
1000 libraries can help There is an existing system already doing some of what we are discussing here. It is the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) established over 100 years ago by Title 44 of the U.S. Code. It is still working and has over 1000 libraries, which are Congressionally authorized, and operate under rules and regulations about selecting, acquiring, organizing, and preserving government publications and making them publicly accessible. Incorporating Title 44 and the FDLP into our recommendations would, I think, enhance those recommendations in several ways. We could use Title 44 as leverage to help make Congress do what we believe they should do. Proposals that include the depository system can also make use of an existing infrastructure of depository libraries. A system designed around the depository library system can also benefit from the public's well-known confidence in Libraries for providing "authentic" information. And, the depository system comes with hundreds, if not thousands, of existing government information specialists; (some of you may know Rick McKinney and Bernadine Hoduski for example). Depository librarians already play a key role in helping the public by sleuthing for and compiling information about Congressional Resources and are well trained in the creation, distribution, and use of government information. I think one way of incorporating FDLP into the recommendations is to do so in the context of access and preservation and service. We could recommend two things that are complementary, not mutually exclusive: 1. An official depository system for digital government information 2. A system that includes the flexibility for anyone (not just those in the depository system) to get and use digital government information either from the original government source or from depositories. I see the first as the government *actively pushing* content to those who accept responsibility for receiving it and the second as the government *passively allowing* anyone to get what they want -- with the onus on the user to identify, locate, and acquire the information. I see active deposit by the government as essential if we want a system that can ensure that *everything* the government produces -- not just what is obvious and prominent today -- leaves government servers and has a home on non-government servers where decisions about preservation and access are not made by the government agencies that must be held accountable with that information. While "passive" accessibility is good (and also essential if we want equitable, free access), it does not ensure that everything will be captured and it puts the onus on the user to spider, crawl, search, identify, compare, acquire, etc. There are high costs associated with those tasks and we can eliminate a lot of those costs by requiring active deposit. With a little tweaking, (e.g, distributing CRS reports and hearing *transcripts*), the FDLP could quickly make the House more transparent by making more information more available to more people now. By including digital files as part of the depository program, the FDLP could go further by providing a stable, already funded and staffed infrastructure of institutions whose *primary* responsibility is information access. In addition, provision of this information through libraries would free the information from DRM and fees that GPO and agencies may impose. It would also ensure that the information would be more preservable, and more usable for more people for longer. Once the House uses the FDLP to build greater transparency, it will be a model for the Senate. There will be some challenges to using FDLP because it is very much in transition. The Government Printing Office (GPO) is arrogating to itself much of the responsibility that once was distributed across the country to hundreds of libraries; and, FDLP libraries have been slow to accept or demand deposit of digital materials. But I believe that digital deposits into FDLP libraries are inevitable and the sooner the flow of digital information from the government to libraries starts, the better. (I am part of a small group of librarians who advocate active digital deposit at the website freegovinfo.info. You can see more background on our work and ideas here: http://freegovinfo.info/issues http://freegovinfo.info/fdlp_digital for more background.) Jim Jacobs Continue readingNew Report on FOIA performance
A new report on Freedom of Information Act performance says "the government’s overall FOIA performance remains at the lowest point since agency reporting began in 1998, despite President Bush’s executive order last December directing agencies to become more service oriented and reform legislation introduced in the Congress."
- The Waiting Game: FOIA Performance Hits New Lows (pdf) Coalition of Journalists for Open Government.
The Coalition collected the FOIA performance reports from the 15 Cabinet-level departments and 15 agencies dating back to 1998.
Also see: Report finds little progress processing FOIA requests, by Daniel Pulliam, GovExec.com, March 5, 2007. Continue readingMore on House Hearings about Presidential Records
The National Coalition For History (NCH) newsletter has an article about the Hearings held this week on Presidential Records and the impact Executive Order (E.O.) 13233. The public witnesses were united in their opposition to E.O.13233.
- House Archives Subcommittee Holds Presidential Records Hearing NCH WASHINGTON UPDATE (Vol. 13, #7; March 2, 2007) By Lee White (Editor)
Mr. [Steven L.] Hensen, representing the Society of American Archivists said, "On behalf of the nation's archivists, I ask your consideration in overturning this six-year old Executive Order that has seriously compromised the basic principles of government accountability, which are underpinned by the people's right of access to the records of their government. In the case of the records of the office of the President of the United States, it is a right that took a long time for the nation to claim fully, but just a quick stroke of the pen to destroy."
The official page for the hearings is: Subcommittee Holds Hearing on The Presidential Records Act of 1978. There is a copy there of legislation (H.R. 1255) that would nullify the Bush E.O. and NCH reports that copies of all of the testimony should be available there shortly.
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