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CNN To Release Debates Under Creative Commons
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat May 05, 2007 06:56 PM
from the coming-to-their-senses dept.
from the coming-to-their-senses dept.
remove office writes "After calls from several prominent bloggers and a couple of presidential candidates, CNN has agreed to release the footage from its upcoming June presidential debates uncopyrighted. Senator Barack Obama was the first candidate to call for all presidential debates to be released under Creative Commons, with fellow Democratic hopeful John Edwards following shortly afterwards. CNN will be the first to do so with their June 3rd and 5th Democratic and Republican debates. MSNBC hosted the first presidential debates recently but refused to release them under Creative Commons, opting instead to post online only commercial-ridden clips in Windows Media format."
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NBC Believes They Own Political Discourse 259 comments
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Obama Requests Creative Commons for Presidential Debates 478 comments
Presidential hopeful Barack Obama recently submitted a letter to the DNC asking for the Presidential debates to be licensed under the Creative Commons. This move would give everyone the freedom to share, recut, and edit the debates as they wish. "I am a strong believer in the importance of copyright, especially in a digital age. But there is no reason that this particular class of content needs the protection. We have incentive enough to debate. The networks have incentive enough to broadcast those debates. Rather than restricting the product of those debates, we should instead make sure that our democracy and citizens have the chance to benefit from them in all the ways that technology makes possible."
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On a closely related sidenote: (Score:5, Insightful)
"Uncopyrighted" would probably mean to have the work put into the public domain - that's, however, not true for the CC-licenses, nor is it for any other "free" license (like GNU GPL, GNU FDL, BSDL, MITL and Co.) I know. All these licenses cleverly make use of copyright to guarantee certain freedoms and/or restrictions.
Re:On a closely related sidenote: (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know how that rumour got started.
Re:On a closely related sidenote: (Score:5, Funny)
Untrue. I've prohibited it in my house. If you want to disclaim copyright on a work then you can go someplace else and do it. My house, my rules.
Re:On a closely related sidenote: (Score:4, Funny)
It's the sort of thinking we need to overthrow this system. Start thinking of ourselves as sovereign peoples, sovereign households - streets - communities.
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Re:On a closely related sidenote: (Score:5, Informative)
Thus all books are copyrighted by someone - but it may not always be the original author.
Thus every book published will have someone who holds the books copyright.
I doubt Sweden is the only country that have laws like this.
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Which, of course, is absurd.
Don't let the americans find out.
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Thus all books are copyrighted by someone - but it may not always be the original author.
Thus every book published will have someone who holds the books copyright.
Re:On a closely related sidenote: (Score:4, Informative)
First he must be an orphan, otherwise his closest relatives will inherit the copyright. They can say no to inheriting anything. In that case all his belongings are belong to the state, including the copyright.
The copyright is then the publishers.
Even worse than that... (Score:2)
Re:Even worse than that... (Score:5, Funny)
(Sorry but the enthusiasm with which you said that was a little much or at least that's how I read it
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The BSD, MIT, and a few other licenses, are such a tiny ste
Uncopyrighted... (Score:3, Funny)
Is of course quite different from a Creative Commons license. (Assuming by "uncopyrighted" they mean "into the public domain").
Seems like a good idea, anyway. What's the point of having a debate if you don't let people debate the debate?
(That was a rhetorical question, please don't comment on it).
Re:Uncopyrighted... (Score:5, Funny)
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oh wait...
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Creative Commons != copyright free (Score:2)
The article and summary seem to be treating "Creative Commons" and "copyright free" as synonyms. This is not the case. "Creative Commons" is an umbrella term for a number of different licenses and a dedication to the public domain. It's entirely possib
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Yes, but as Vain Gloria points out, Creative Commons offers a public domain dedication too. In common usage, the term "Creative Commons works" include t
Re:Creative Commons != copyright free (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, in answer to your question, a specific license has not been announced yet, but CNN has indicated that people will be free to do whatever they like with it (remix it, edit it, use it in a documentary, post it anywhere they want, etc).
One of the specific points that Obama had was that he wanted the footage to be free for people to use in creating things like remixed YouTube videos, etc ("end user created content").
Interesting (Score:2)
Indeed (Score:5, Informative)
The mainstream media is silent on these candidates, but Digg is abuzz with Ron Paul and Mike Gravel. Please looking up these two and consider actively spreading the word about who you like (either of these two or other candidates you find). Or do you guys want to be stuck with a Bush vs. Kerry like candidates in 2008 with both sides sucking?
Ron Paul:
http://digg.com/search?s=%22ron+paul%22&submit=Se
Mike Gravel:
http://digg.com/search?s=%22mike+gravel%22&submit
Breaking news : now MSNBC will do the same (Score:2)
(Pay attention to the MS prefix in MSNBC and you will get what i meant)
A little late in the day, isn't it? (Score:2)
You can watch them on YouTube anyhow (Score:4, Informative)
Just search for "republican presidential debate part" or "democrat presidential debate part" respectively on YouTube. They're split into 9 minute chunks.
I think it would be awfully bad form for MSNBC to pull these from YouTube. But I commend the candidates and CNN for making this issue public. We shouldn't have to rely on the good will (or hesitant takedown action) of MSNBC in order to get coverage of the men and women, one of whom will in a relatively short amount of time hold the highest political office in our democracy.
But sometimes I'm not sure why I care, or that I do. Especially when I see headlines like this: "FLASH: FOXNEWS O'REILLY TOPS MSNBC GOP DEBATE".
And look at the viewership numbers. That's right, not only did less than 1% of elligible voters even WATCH that debate, MORE people watched some blowhard talk about the debate than watched the debate itself.
This should dominate mainstream broadcast and print media. This should preempt regular programming on every broadcast channel.
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Calm down. This is just a couple democratic PRIMARY debates we're talking about. Later, you can expect some debates to get broad
Commercial-Ridden Clips? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on. The debates themselves ARE commercial-ridden clips. The pandering? The acting? The party-line quotes? The weeks of "prep time" these alleged law-makers indulge while honing their so-called "debate" skills? The "I'm presidential" BS? So what if MSCNBCNSC runs them with commercials.
After two stories on this in a few days, is Slashdot sure it wants to hang their hats here on this issue?
The debate format died 20 years ago, was resurrected by Saint Perot, and then was again laid to a peaceful sleep.
The debates now are nothing more than traps. If you attend a debate and get caught in a trap, you are dead. If you lose your temper or slip up, or say "um" too many times, you are dead. Does anyone really think that some candidate will suddenly have some nation-shocking insight that will capture us?
All debates now require that news programs compare every candidate's makeup to Richard Nixon in 1960. WTF? CCGIGO. Creative-commons garbage in...
Moe
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Re:Commercial-Ridden Clips? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Is this person toeing my chosen party's line well enough?
2. Do I "perceive" ("gut feeling," truthiness, et cetera) this person properly?
The GP is absoultely correct in his statement. In this case, I think that there are two root causes. Firstly, our government and the career politicians who comprise it do not want an informed public, by any means. An informed majority would be disastrous for these people. However, it is rather difficult to suppress information within a country that is supposed to be democratic. Dissidents do not just disappear without a trace (yet), and journalists aren't thrown in jail for articles which are critical of the government. A delicate balance must be maintained: the majority must believe that they are informed and conscious, and the information must be ladled out "properly," i.e. dumbed down to "talking points," presented as black and white, with no grey areas, and so on. In traditional totalitarian or dictatorial states, the public is left completely uninformed. That method will not work in the United States. In ours and other pseudo-democratic states, the goal is to have a misinformed public.
The second cause, I believe, is affected somewhat by the first one. The majority get their news on the run, and from the humongous conglomerates such as CNN or Fox. They do not research anything that they are exposed to further. They see the latest "Left vs. Right: Smackdown!" show on CNN, watch it for awhile, take one side or the other, and call it a day. This is how the majority establish their stances politically. When the option of further research and the establishment of a view based on the facts instead of the opinion of a talking head on a "news-er-tainment" network are given (and I have experienced this firsthand, many times), they claim that they are just "too busy" to worry about things like that. While I realize that it does take a bit more time and effort to become an informed individual, is it really too much? I also think that it might have a lot to do with the fact that policy-makers decisions, as opposed to one hundred years ago or more, do not appear to affect a great deal of our lives. The policy may be a ticking timebomb, but the majority do not realise it.
All of this amounts to what we have today: debates that are, in reality, nothing more than popularity contests. As for a solution, I honestly do not know if there is one in the short term. The majority in this country cannot be forced to care enough to become informed; they must choose to do so themselves. I have never had much faith in most people when it comes to things like this, but then again, I am a devout pessimist. Maybe I will be proven wrong at some point, who knows?
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youtube (Score:5, Insightful)
Youtube is going to be clogged with eight-billion videos of clips out of context and "deep" bad voiceovers explaining why [Candidate X] is the worst/best thing after the devil/Jesus
And the annoyance of having links of all of them e-mailed to me pales to the joy that America is becoming (slightly) more democratic
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OK, true. But there is no good reason to want one, either.
This is great news (Score:2)
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Work to some extent sure. But to be broken unless you use all MS software is to be expected with MS services.
I'm offended that it's legal to copyright this. (Score:2, Insightful)
But Which CC License? (Score:2, Informative)
Unfortunately, none of the referenced articles/links specifies which of the various Creative Commons licenses will be used to release the debates. Having just released a photo project under a CC license, it appears that there are at least four basickinds o
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The Free [gnu.org]
Wonderful! (Score:2)
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Under C-SPAN's contract, they use government-provided cameras on the House and Senate floor for constitutional reasons. Everything that is shot on government equipment is in the public domain by default. The only copy
Let me be the first to say.... (Score:5, Funny)
Creative Commons!=no copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
FTS:
How does a CC license mean the same as noncopyrighted?
IT DOESN'T! Creative Commons, like the GPL, relies on copyright to license works.
Furthermore, according to the CNN website, [cnn.com],
To me, that reads "public domain" and not even Creative Commons. What am I missing?
Admit minor parties, then I'll care. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care what license they release the presidential debates under. It will be "closed source" until the debates establish reasonable guidelines under which minor party candidates are allowed to participate.
I'm a Democrat, but the exclusion of Independents and candidates from the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Socialist, and Reform parties (among others) is a far worse abuse of power than anything done by Microsoft at the height of its antitrust powers.
These are not non-partisan debates -- they are bipartisan affairs, and the rules are deliberately constructed to preserve the political monopolies of the two main parties. It makes for boring, highly scripted debates, where the same old questions receive the same pat soundbite answers. The U.S. Constitution does not provide for a two-party system, and voters deserves better.
Any party or independent campaign which has gotten itself on enough state ballots to theoretically win an election if they carried those states' electoral votes belongs in the presidential debates. As it stands now, a candidate's party must also meet an unrealistic standard of previous electoral performance. This is pretty much impossible, given that minor parties are denied the millions of dollars of free advertising doled out by the media to the already well-funded Democrats and Republicans.
Rather than talking about open licensing for a series of closed debates, let's talk about forbidding their free broadcast over public airwaves until they amount to more than an undocumented campaign contribution by the networks.
Open the damn debates and quit feigning openness with this BS about a Creative Commons license.
Re:Presidential debates (Score:4, Funny)
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they amount to a stretch mark
on, say, Rosie O.