From today’s New York Times (via CNET):
The House Republican Study Committee issued a news release accusing Speaker Nancy Pelosi of “pirating” 16 copyrighted clips of House floor debate from the public affairs network C-Span by including them on her new blog, The Gavel.
I guess they missed the lesson on government works being generally immune to copyright restrictions. Meanwhile, GooTube is making headlines for aggressively removing fair use parodies and snippets.
C-Span’s copyright
But C-Span isn’t a government agency. They’re perfectly entitled to copyright anything that they produce — including video of congressional debate.
Yes, but… it’s not that clear with C-Span video
As article points out the issue with C-Span’s video isn’t quite that clear, something C-Span admitted to in the article. The clips the Republicans pointed out were in fact covered by government cameras, but not all of C-Span’s video is through government owned cameras, as the article correctly points out.
The article also mentioned that C-Span requested that Speaker Pelosi remove copyrighted content which was not shot through the government owned cameras. So her blog was in fact infringing on copyrighted material after all the political mud slinging was finished.
C-Span could have used this opportunity to drive copyright issues to the forefront of public discussion, by issuing a DMCA order to Speaker Pelosi’s ISP to take her blog down. Obviously, she wouldn’t have been pleased… but as usual politicians get favorable treatment with a call and a polite request.
I think the point of the article was that if the people who write the copyright laws cannot figure them out, even for the limited reality of the building they work in, then perhaps change is needed for the rest of us.
Re:C-Span’s copyright
True, but I think C-Span and the U.S. government have joint copyright on anything shot through the government owned cameras. So the public is free to use that footage. The problem comes in when C-Span covers government meetings and they don’t use the government cameras.
For example, C-Span could have footage from both the government owned cameras and their own for the same event. Then you need to know which footage was shot by the government cameras, so you can freely use it. Also, not all meeting rooms have government cameras so there is only the C-Span specific footage. Speaker Pelosi was using some C-Span specific footage on her blog which C-Span requested her to remove the copyrighted material.
Re:Yes, but… it’s not that clear with C-Span vid
I have some doubts as to whether the work C-Span requested was infringing, as there is a pretty strong fair use argument to be made for Pelosi’s use of the material. I also think that the copyright in question is relatively “thin,” because although C-Span provided the fixation, the words themselves were not C-Span’s creation.
I think your last point is right on. ^_^