The Congressional Record and The Imaginary Adventures of the U.S. Senate
This is a well known story for documents librarians, but this is a good telling of the tale. It has the added benefit of being timely what with all that is going on about C-SPAN (see: C-SPAN provides more access, but wants to retain control). It includes links to Click.TV and Metavid (an open-source effort at UC-Santa Cruz that "has been building an impressive online archive of all the House and Senate floor proceedings from January 2006 forward") and more:
- The Imaginary Adventures of the U.S. Senate: Sorting fact from fiction in the Congressional Record by Jesse Walker, Reason March 8, 2007
What all this interest in video of Congress may lead to (and many of us would like to see it!) is an "open-source" version of the Congressional Record -- a transcript of what is actually said in Congress. It would make an excellent complement to the official CR. But this is hard to do now, because, as the Metavid folks discovered when they asked the government for transcripts, "the government wasn't willing to provide them with a pre-edited version of the daily Record." More Control of Information: your tax dollars at work! :-(
Continue readingC-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
Fair use for digital content
Representative Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) indtroduced a bill last week (H.R. 1201 "Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007" (FAIR USE Act) that would make it easier for scholars to use copyrighted works without running afoul of copyright law. The legislation contains several improvements to the Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act, similar legislation which the lawmakers introduced in the 108th and 109th Congresses. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has endorsed the bill while the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says it would "legalize hacking." Anyone care to editorialize? Continue reading
Official U.S. House Committee Lists Released
Posted in the past day or so from the Clerk's Office * Official Alphabetical List of Members with Committee Assignments Also available as PDF. 20 pages. * Official List of Standing Committees 66 pages; PDF. Continue reading
Census Bureau Accidently Places Data Online
The Census Bureau today reported that a file containing limited respondent information on 302 households, commingled with fictitious test records, was improperly posted on one of the agency’s externally accessible servers in violation of strict agency policies regarding the protection of respondent information. The file was immediately removed. No Social Security numbers were contained in the files and the Census Bureau has no evidence that any respondent data were misused. “As soon as we learned of the improper posting, we moved quickly to fix the problem. We immediately shut down the site and began an investigation,†said Census Director Charles Louis Kincannon.Continue reading