CBC, TVO and GuideGatineau
GuideGatineau is the example used in Jesse Brown’s most recent podcast episode on Search Engine. Jesse Brown used to work at CBC but is now with TVO. His blog is here. His podcast is here.
On March 18, 2010 GuideGatineau recorded and reposted audio of a CBC All in a Day interview with Eric Grenier and Daniel Gagnon about restrictions to rock climbing in Gatineau Park. I let CBC know I was doing that and they replied asking me instead to link to the same audio on their site.
The Search Engine podcast had previously done an episode on the inconsistency of CBC’s policy with respect to reposting content and Jesse picked up on the GuideGatineau example and interviewed Jeff Keay on the matter. Jeff Keay is Head of Media Relations, English Services at CBC. Here’s the full version of Jesse’s podcast. It runs 19 minutes.
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I like this piece because I think everyone comes off pretty well; except the consistency of CBC’s policy.
And if you don't want to invest 19 minutes here are the high points:
- Jesse says “According to its mandate the CBC must actively contribute to the flow and exchange of cultural expression and make its content available throughout Canada by the most efficient means available.”
- He then explains that the CBC is working with a company called iCopyright in a way that contradicts this objective by requiring people to pay hundreds of dollars per month for licensing fees and offering a reward of up to a million dollars for reporting copyright infringement. But because there was an uproar about this based on his earlier reporting, a CBC spokesman (Jeff Keay I think) had said (in Jesse’s paraphrase): “it didn’t really apply to people who wanted to excerpt a little CBC content for blogs…it’s still okay as long as it’s for reasonable non-commercial use and as long as you request and receive written permission any time you post something.”
- The podcast then contains a very flattering edit Jesse did of me talking about GuideGatineau, about the rock climbing controversy, and the CBC interview that I took down.
- Because I figured and Jesse figured that the use I put the audio to was a reasonable non-commercial use, Jesse got Jeff Keay on the phone to ask why permission in this case had been denied.
- Jeff said the area was unclear and evolving. He said that in general CBC encourages linking, excerpting and describing (he did say excerpting but if you listen to the whole thing I don’t think he meant it) but that CBC needs to protect its content, the rights to the content and sometimes that even includes other people’s content within it so it’s complicated. In the case of GuideGatineau specifically he agrees that my use is reasonable and non-commercial, but says I still don’t have the right to post the material. He agrees that it’s a problem in that this piece of audio will before too long disappear from the CBC site and they are still trying to figure out how to manage it.
- In effect he said, they can’t give me permission because it will set a precedent.
- Jesse points out that video on the CBC website cannot be embedded into other people’s blogs or websites but that some of the same content on the official CBC YouTube channel can be. Jeff says if it’s on YouTube it’s implied that there is permission and then admits of the contradiction “It’s crazy isn’t it.”
- Jesse then queries what exactly is being protected. CBC content producers are paid a wage, not a royalty; CBC revenue isn’t based on copyright infringement settlements. Jeff says they’re working things through, they’re trying to protect their content and their brand. Jesse asks if their brand isn’t the thing that’s coming off worst as people steer away from sharing CBC information based on confusion as to what is or isn’t allowed.
Now it would seem to me that allowing content sharing via YouTube would constitute a slightly larger precedent than giving GuideGatineau permission to post the audio.
Funny thing is, I've asked for permission to repost CBC material 3 times. Once I got no answer, once they said yes, and in this case they said no.