There seems to be a gulf between what the BBC reported its head to have said and what a transcript of the speech revealed. There has been some excited discussion by Danny O’Brien and Alan Connor (and, inevitably, on Slashdot and kuro5hin) that seem based on what they would like this announcement to be rather than what it is.
Matt Jones (who works at the BBC) says the move is, “brave and disruptive – and will have to be executed as such, with no half-measures or compromises to vested interests.”
In fact, while BBC News’ summary suggests Dyke said the Creative Archive would contain “all the corporation’s programme archives”, the speech actually promised to allow “parts of our programmes, where we own the rights, to be available to anyone in the UK to download” (emphasis mine). Nothing there about all of the BBC’s archives. And the example he uses – kids downloading, “real moving pictures which would turn their project into an exciting multi-media presentation” make it sound like a collection of digital clip-art.
At best it sounds like it will start as an archive of history and science programmes aimed at education – a sort of BBC Encarta – at worst it could just be a few clips and pix from high profile “Walking with Dinosaurs” programmes that effectively act as free promotion.
Of course there is room for the project to evolve but it would take a large amount of political will before, say, full-length downloadable EastEnders episodes are made downloadable. If Dyke is serious about this, I imagine the first step would have to be sweeping changes to the rights purchased when programmes are produced or licensed to allow for this kind of re-distribution. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing that current BBC licenses – even for in-house productions – would require some kind of additional payments to key people if material is re-broadcast. And there is certainly room to argue that making a programme downloadable is equivalent to re-broadcasting it.
Cory Doctorow says he knows some of the details of the project and he’s certainly excited – I hope I have underestimated Greg Dyke’s determination and vision.
BBC archives less open?
I got rather excited earlier this week when I saw that the BBC was opening it’s archives. David Brake has some thoughts on the possible scope of the plan. I certainly share his hope that he’s underestimating things, because the…
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