[Infowarrior] - C-SPAN liberalizes its copyright policy

[Richard Forno]

http://www.c-span.org/about/press/release.asp?code=video

PRESS RELEASE
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jennifer Moire
(202) 626-8797
jmoire at c-span.org

 
 
C-SPAN TAKES LEAD IN MAKING VIDEO OF CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS, WHITE HOUSE AND
OTHER FEDERAL EVENTS MORE WIDELY AVAILABLE TO THE ONLINE COMMUNITY

Cable Network Introduces New Copyright Policy and Expanded Capitol Hearings
Website
 
 
WASHINGTON (Wednesday, March 7, 2007) - Advancing its longstanding mission
of bringing government closer to the people, C-SPAN announced today two
major initiatives designed to greatly expand citizen access to its online
video of federal government activities, such as congressional hearings,
agency briefings, and White House events. These actions are intended to meet
the growing demand for video about the federal government and Congress, in
an age of explosive growth of video file sharers, bloggers, and online
'citizen journalists.' The policy change is effective immediately.

· C-SPAN is introducing a liberalized copyright policy for current, future,
and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any
federal agency-- about half of all programming offered on the C-SPAN
television networks--which will allow non-commercial copying, sharing, and
posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution.

· In addition, C-SPAN also announced plans to significantly build out its
capitolhearings.org website as a one-stop resource for
Congressionally-produced webcasts of House and Senate committee and
subcommittee hearings.

C-SPAN Executive Committee Chairman William J. Bresnan, CEO of Bresnan
Communications said that the network's directors enthusiastically endorsed
the copyright policy liberalization. "The C-SPAN board sees this as helping
us carry out C-SPAN's public service mission,' he said. "The cable industry
created this network to allow citizens greater access to their government
and this enhancement appropriately reflects the rapid changes in the online
information world."

"Giving voice to the average citizen has been a centerpiece of C-SPAN's
journalism since our network's founding in 1979," said, Rob Kennedy, C-SPAN
president and co-COO. "As technology advances, we want to continue to be a
leader in providing citizens with the tools to be active participants in the
democratic process."

The new C-SPAN policy borrows from the approach to copyright known in the
online community as "Creative Commons." Examples of events included under
C-SPAN's new expanded policy include all congressional hearings and press
briefings, federal agency hearings, and presidential events at the White
House. C-SPAN's copyright policy will not change for the network's studio
productions, all non-federal events, campaign and political event coverage,
and the network's feature programming, such as Book TV and original history
series.

Capitolhearings.org was launched in 2001 as a public service to aggregate
the Congressionally-produced live audio streams of Senate hearings. The
initial build-out of the site will incorporate the rapidly increasing
webcasts of House committee and subcommittee hearings.

ABOUT C-SPAN
C-SPAN, the political network of record, was created in 1979 by America's
cable companies as a public service. C-SPAN is currently available in more
than 90 million households, C-SPAN2 in more than 82 million households and
C-SPAN3 in over 12 million households nationwide. For more information about
C-SPAN, visit its website at www.c-span.org.