An Oasis

BBC Creative Archive

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC announced plans to open up the BBC archive.

Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation's programme archives.

Mr Dyke said on Sunday that everyone would in future be able to download BBC radio and TV programmes from the internet.

Which is quite a bold move and will make a massive difference to uptake of Broadband Internet Access in the UK I would think.

Danny O'Brien at Oblomovka goes into this in depth in Freeing the BBC.

"Now, ask yourself: why is it called the Creative Archive? Could it be something to do with a series of talks Larry Lessig gave to the BBC earlier this year? Conversations that continued in San Francisco with Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive?

I hope so. If it is, the public domain (or at least, the domain of the freely distributed, freely available content) is about to get a very sizeable grant. Eighty years worth of radio, televisual and film content, from the General Strike to World War II to the era of Benny Hill and the world of the Hitchhiker's Guide . From Richard Dimbleby and the Coronation to David Dimbleby and Donald Rumsfeld."

Posted by Paul at August 26, 2003 01:24 AM |