Comments on: From my notebook

By: knolleary » Blog Archive » Links for 2008-10-20 to 2008-11-06

knolleary » Blog Archive » Links for 2008-10-20 to 2008-11-06 — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:01:28 +0000

[...] BBC Common Platform: From my notebook – "Rights" is often used as the reason the BBC struggles to be more open with its content. As a part of his Common platform work, Steve points out that "there are other obstacles to sharing—many in fact. This chart is a first attempt at capturing all the reasons the BBC might come up with for not opening up…" [...]

By: Steve Bowbrick

Steve Bowbrick — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:05:41 +0000

Mike, much as I respect creators in general I would challenge what you're saying. We may legitimately judge that the rights of licence fee-payers and the interests of UK Plc trump the more narrowly-defined rights of creators - at least in some circumstances: for instance when works are older than a certain age or when enforcing rights would essentially be officious or wasteful. I've written about this here.

By: Why the BBC doesn’t share » Nieman Journalism Lab » Pushing to the Future of Journalism

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:18:22 +0000

[...] web of circles and lines is BBC blogger Steve Bowbrick’s conception of what’s standing in the way of a more “open” BBC. There’s a discussion going on in the comments of Steve’s post, but a better one on the [...]

By: Mike Dorey

Mike Dorey — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:27:10 +0000

With regards ‘what the young folk are doing’ – This is (mostly) just theft, actually. Nor is it just related to ‘young’ people, actually. If you were to walk out of HMV with a DVD you hadn’t paid for, the ‘it’s fine – I’m going to create, and re-express’ argument wouldn’t get you very far.

With regards ‘the purpose of sharing’ Will that include representations from content owners, contributors etc? I have no doubt there is a benefit for public purposes, *but* again, its not for us to say: It is for rights-holders and owners to decide. Perhaps not everyone *wants* their content shared. Fine: Thats their privilage – not ours.

By: Robert Bole

Robert Bole — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:36:40 +0000

The rights issue is a big obstacle and one that folks just hate to address because if involves the economic interests of folks we love to love, namely artists, documentary filmmakers, etc. and folks that we love to hate, such as Hollywood, commercial media, reality shows, etc.

It also involves lawyers, which can drive media folks batty…so there are lots of obstacles to just getting up enough energy to address the point.

However, there is also another issue that tends to get swept under the rug a bit: “To what purpose?” Sharing is great for self-expression as Lessig suggests, but the leap from “re-expressing” to original content is not too wide or insurmountable. If folks want to create, they can create without having to go to far afield in finding cleared or free content.

Here is what I would ask us to work on: let’s carefully define the purpose of sharing and follow that through the thicket of rights. Especially with the BBC. If sharing leads to a substantial benefit for a definable public purpose (i.e. fighting poverty) then that should be the guiding point for both pursuing the collaboration, as well as modeling organizational behavior.

By: James Cherkoff

James Cherkoff — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:28:23 +0000

I think Lessig sums up the rights issues well: “To my generation what they (young folk!) are doing doesn’t seem important because we’ve never done it. You want culture then rent it, watch it, sit on your couch and enjoy it. But younger generations say, ‘Why is what I’m doing illegal? I’m creating, I’m re-expressing, I’m criticising, I’m spreading ideas.’ But the reality is that under our law – that’s illegal.”

By: Mike Dorey

Mike Dorey — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:27:50 +0000

The rights issue is complex, yes, but not impossible to deal with: The issue is getting investment in the relevant systems to inform people of what is exploitable and what isn’t. That’s the tricky bit. It’s also important to recognise that the product of our creative and entertainment industries isn’t freeware – and rightly so – Its content and assets in which people have ownership and livelyhoods tied up. The people that complain about ‘rights issues’ seem to me to be mostly people that have never been an artist, contributor to or maker of anything of creative value. Yes, ‘sharing’ and ‘openness’ are great ideals, but this can and should be on the artist/contributors terms. It’s not for us to suggest otherwise.

By: James Cherkoff

James Cherkoff — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:32:14 +0000

If Fox and NBC can sort out their rights to launch Hulu, then surely the BBC can do the same. More here: http://tinyurl.com/57vk3j

By: Nieman Journalism Lab: Pushing to the Future of Journalism

Nieman Journalism Lab: Pushing to the Future of Journalism — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:06:41 +0000

By: Robin Hamman

Robin Hamman — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:18:18 +0000

I think inertia also shouldn’t be under-rated as an obstacle.

People at the BBC who genuinely want to share content, ideas or information often find ways to do that. Sure, they have to fly under the radar, but fly there they can and sometimes do.

But the system(s), on a whole, tends not to default towards openness. This means that someone somewhere has to make the conscious decision, and often action to back it up, to open things up. That’s sometimes risky and sometimes time consuming – causing the easy, well trodden route to appear as the most logical: Don’t bother.

Change the default, however, and you’re on to a winner.