BBC Makes 80 News Reports Available under the "Creative Archive Licence"

BBC News Interactive has made available online nearly 80 news reports from the BBC's archives. The videos cover various iconic events from the past 50 years, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, and crowds ejecting soldiers from Beijing's Tiananmen Square. They are being offered under the name, the "Open News Archive," as part of a pilot BBC-spearheaded initiative, dubbed the "Creative Archive Licence," that allows UK residents to watch, download and edit BBC clips and programming (as well as video from other participating organizations) for non-commercial purposes. The BBC says that it hopes its viewers will use the news clips--which are available at bbc.co.uk/opennewsarchive--"as the fuel for their own creative endeavors." In order to ensure that the clips are available to as wide an audience as possible, they are being offered in QuickTime, Windows Media, MPEG-1 and MP3 formats. "The big news stories of the last three decades are the punctuation marks in the stories of our lives," Paul Gerhardt, project director for the Creative Archive Licence, said in a prepared statement. "The BBC's telling of those stories is part of our heritage, and now that the UK public have the chance to share and keep them we're keen to know how they will be used. Whatever you do, let us know--and help to shape the future of the Creative Archive." (Note: the organization that operates the Creative Archive Licence was established last April by the BBC, the British Film Institute, Channel 4 and the Open University; its membership is open to broadcasters and other companies and organizations that are willing to share their content with the public under the license's terms. New content created under the terms of the license must acknowledge the original creators of the material it uses, and, if publicly shared, must be offered under the same terms. The BBC's board of governors will assess the Corporation's participation in the program after an 18-month pilot period.)

(Note: this article was published in the January 18th issue of the InteractiveTV Today [itvt] email newsletter.)

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