Creative Archive Licence Group

April 13, 2005 10:29 AM

Creative archive licence group at The Beeb. Today sees the launch of the Creative Archive Licence Group, a joint venture between the BBC, the Open University, Channel 4 and the BFI to provide legal content to the (initially UK only) public under a series of licences that are quite similar to those by Creative Commons. Although at present only a trial, the project timetable looks as though some good material will be made available.
posted by TheDonF (6 comments total)

Sounds promising.
posted by ZippityBuddha at 10:52 AM on April 13, 2005

The idea is great, but they might have some problems with a couple of their terms. The big catch I see is:

2.2.5. do not use the Work (which includes any underlying contributions to the work) and/or any Derivative Work for any illegal, derogatory or otherwise offensive purpose or through the use of the Work or any Derivative Work bring the Licensor's (or underlying rights owners') reputation into disrepute

Who exactly determines if something brings a reputation into disrepute? How can you show the difference of intent between defamation and parody? Illegal I get to some extent, but everything else is a "if we don't like what you do with our toys, we'll take them from you" clause.

I wish them luck, but the British public have already paid for this content (by and large) and so should have the rights to use it as they see fit.
posted by lowlife at 11:12 AM on April 13, 2005

Forget the rights and contracts and derivative works. I want to hear Mrs. Slocombe complain about her pussy (sfw).
posted by NickDouglas at 12:23 PM on April 13, 2005

i was there (about 20 minbutes ago) and they are all good people with their hearts in the right place. It's not just the BBC, but the British Film Institute, Channel 4 and the Open University too.

Although there is a lot of positive thinking from them all, and they are all doing this for the right reasons, there appear to be a *lot* of legal and rights issues that have to be worked out - so don't expect to see ms Slocome available for free for download for a while yet. For the next 18 months they're running a trial to see how it goes - after that they're going to try to open up content as much as possible given the apparently very legally complex licensing issues.

It's not perfect, but it's things like this that make me love the BBC - I'm *so* happy that we have a national broadcaster that cares about something more than simply making money.
posted by silence at 1:13 PM on April 13, 2005

sorry - missed the stuff in the post about C4, BFI and OU - a little worse for wear from the launch party drinks and lack of sleep.
posted by silence at 1:21 PM on April 13, 2005

lowlife: "Who exactly determines if something brings a reputation into disrepute?"

I think that's an unfortunate nature of the "moral rights" inherent in much of EU property law.
posted by mathowie at 2:51 PM on April 13, 2005