[Infowarrior] - Which Videos Are Protected? Lawmakers Get a Lesson

[Richard Forno]

February 26, 2007
Which Videos Are Protected? Lawmakers Get a Lesson
By NOAM COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/technology/26cspan.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&p
agewanted=print

As the new Congress experiments with the wide world of blogging and video
clips, members are learning the complexities of copyright law, much the way
the casual YouTube user has learned that there are corporations out there
that own ³Lost² and can stop you from posting a favorite episode.

The introduction began awkwardly this month when the House Republican Study
Committee issued a news release accusing Speaker Nancy Pelosi of ³pirating²
16 copyrighted clips of House floor debate from the public affairs network
C-Span by including them on her new blog, The Gavel.

Shortly after the news release was distributed by e-mail, C-Span corrected
the record to say that House and Senate floor debates are ³government
works,² shot by government-owned cameras, and thus in the public domain. The
Republican committee promptly sent out a news release to withdraw the
accusation against Ms. Pelosi¹s office.

The speaker¹s spokesman, Brendan Daly, used the opportunity to decry ³yet
another baseless attack of the Republicans; in this case they have retracted
it.²

But last week, as it happens, C-Span did contact the speaker¹s office to
have it take down a different clip from her blog ‹ one shot by C-Span¹s
cameras at a House Science and Technology Committee hearing on global
warming where Ms. Pelosi testified, Mr. Daly said. (The blog has substituted
material filmed by the committee¹s cameras, he said.)

C-Span, a private nonprofit company financed by the cable and satellite
affiliates that carry its programming, says that over more than 25 years of
operating it has consistently asserted its copyright to any material it
shoots with its own cameras. But that message can get lost.

³We are structurally burdened, in terms of people¹s perception, because we
are the only network that has such a big chunk of public domain material,²
said Bruce Collins, the corporate vice president and general counsel of
C-Span. He estimated that 5 to 15 percent of C-Span¹s programming is from
the House and Senate floor, and thus publicly available.

³It is perfectly understandable to me that people would be confused,² he
said. ³They say, ŒWhen a congressman says something on the floor it is
public domain, but he walks down the street to a committee hearing or give a
speech and it is not public domain?¹ ²

The issue is of recent vintage for C-Span. In May, C-Span said that it had
for first time asserted its copyright against a video-clip site, ordering
YouTube to take down copies of Stephen Colbert¹s pointed speech in front of
President Bush at the White House Correspondents¹ Association dinner. Clips
of the speech had been viewed 2.7 million times on YouTube in the 48 hours
before it was taken down.

³What I think a lot of people don¹t understand ‹ C-Span is a business, just
like CNN is,² Mr. Collins said. ³If we don¹t have a revenue stream, we
wouldn¹t have six crews ready to cover Congressional hearings.²

Without use of C-Span¹s material, members of Congress will have to rely on
government cameras to get their message out.

Mr. Daly said that the speaker¹s office had its own camera operator and that
11 of 21 House committees can Webcast their hearings, with the goal that all
will be able to do so.

On that, even Ms. Pelosi¹s critics agreed. ³The Republican Study Committee,
Republicans in general, would favor more transparency,² said the committee¹s
spokesman, Brad Dayspring. ³We heard that the committees are moving in that
direction ‹ conservatives would support that.²