Edited by author 08-24-2003 03:16 PM
Original post on Oblomovka

Do you think we should star emailing them to stress the need for open formats before the nice man from Microsoft pops over to TV Centre for an intimate chat?

On a smaller scale:

The Royal Canadian Air Farce, a show on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) has been giving away its episodes, without commericals, via the web, for years.

I don't know how the BBC finances its productions, but there may be a catch. At least the public german stations finance their stuff partially by selling it to stations in other country. If they release it as free content, they may lose a part of their revenues.

Er. I think you'll find "The Jewel In The Crown" was on ITV.

Thanks for covering that.

I think you gave the question of public access to public content a sense of perspective, since it's easy to forget in the U.S. that the BBC is a publicly owned corporation. I wrote a fairly lengthy entry using what the BBC will be doing as a jumping-off point for what could be done in the U.S.

Oops. You're right about Jewel in the Crown.

BBC sales of programmes pulled in profits of 123million UKP last year. The licence fee brings in 2.6 billion. Even if it all went away (and remember, the rights won't be for commercial use), that's less than 5% of revenue.

The Royal Canadian Air Farce puts episodes online?

http://www.airfarce.com/

is currently showing a 'congratulations on installing Apache' page. So much for being entertained by free content.

If they release it as free content, they may lose a part of their revenues.

I know what you mean, but personally I'm not overly worried. As long as TV survives, the BBC still ought to be able to sell its programmes abroad. Canal+ isn't going to start broadcasting the downloaded versions: low-quality, and highly illegal. So if they want to put good-quality programming together, they can act as a filter like many other broadcasters.

This is insanely cool. I want to have Greg Dyke's babies.

Regarding this possibly damaging their licensing abroad -- I can't see that happening, since 99.999% of people don't *want* to watch programmes on their PC; there'll always be a market for them to sell on programmes to third-party networks abroad to broadcast. And as Alan Connor points out, a third-party network that broadcasts the 'net version will breach the licensing terms.

Yes, the BBC crew was brought to the Archive by Larry Lessig and we showed how inexpensive it can be and how we have dealt with the ego's and restrictions issues that always come up.

I dont know what role we played, but their decision is fantastic and hopefully trendsetting.

The print publishers made it possible to directly reference old news papers and magazines by posting on the net... Now I hope this goes for moving image collections.

As peter lyman said "the amazing thing of the web is that now, knowledge has an address".

amen.

thank you bbc.

-brewster
brewster@archive.org
Digital Librarian
Internet Archive

I've only just read about this and I'm so insanely excited about it that I can hardly get my thoughts in order. I'm sure new things will keep coming all the time but for the moment here are some thoughts...

The first and most selfish, I get to see all those old programs again. I can see Kenny Everett again and again and again. All those Royal Institute Christmas Lectures that each year I religiously miss, I get to see them. Every single interview with Douglas Adams I can find. To be able to go and look through all the old episodes of Tomorrow's World and recap on all the things that were supposed to be around in the year 2000, are we Post Future yet? That was the first me-me-me thought that went through my head.

Next, I'm planning on homeschooling, my daughter is only 16 months so that gives the BBC plenty of time to sort things out. Now Encarta is all well and good but if we suddenly decide to do a project about Whales it'd be really nice if we just popped to the BBC website a pulled up a list of every program they've ever made about Whales. I really hope they have some good metadate going on, something like the Dublin Core would be great so we can actually find stuff!

For education and schools it'd be an amazing resource. You want to do an A-Level (17-18 yr olds) project about the miners strike, don't worry about text books, go right to the on-the-spot news reports. Pop Media Studies:- The Old Grey Whistle Test, need I say more? Social Studies looking back at the 50s, 60s, 70s etc. easy. University is going to be really easy now!

Finially from the left B3ta side of my brain. The chance to "remix" and reinvent old TV programs. It'll be like the computer games mod scene. Sure there'll be some very basic tweeks of old Dr Who episodes but I'm sure some teams will come up with totally redubbed versions with new monsters rendered in over the top. Fanfiction can go to a whole new level, Dr Who meets Blakes 7 crossover stories?... yes.

I am willing to bet here and now that the following happens...

Stage 1. Some people start to badly re-engineer Dr Who.
Stage 2. The good people get together.
Stage 3. Good "new" episodes of Dr Who start to hit the internet.
Stage 4. Other programs get redubbed and remix.
Stage 5. The BBC start to show these new versions in a new series called "BBC Redux".
Stage 6. These remixes become more popular than new programs.
Stage 7. The teams of "remixers" become paid professionals.
Stage 8. The old "professionals" throw up thier hands in confusion as they just don't get it.
Stage 9. Advertising and Marketing scramble to package this new rebellion and sell it back to us.
Stage 10. TV eats itself.