The New York Times’ Noam Cohen has this fun article about how even Congress gets confused about video sharing and copyright infringement. It seems that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) put on her new blog (!) The Gavel 16 clips of House floor debate taken from C-SPAN.
The House Republican Study Committee jumped on what they claimed was Pelosi’s violation of C-SPAN’s copyrights, going so far as to issue a press release condemning the Speaker’s “piracy.” It turns out that the Republicans were wrong: the clips Pelosi purloined were “government works,” shot by government-owned cameras, and therefore in the public domain.
Unfortunately for Pelosi, she also posted a different clip that was recorded by C-SPAN’s cameras and therefore the property of C-SPAN. The non-profit cable network asked Pelosi’s office to take down that clip.
Admittedly, C-SPAN is a special case. About 5% to 15% of its programming falls in the public domain, but it’s awfully hard to distinguish the difference between public domain and copyrighted content.
Cynthia Brumfield at 10:36 PM|Comments(0)
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