... The [British Broadcasting Corporation's] director general Mark Thompson has directed the corporation to think beyond proprietary rights management to a new era of interoperability that offers consumers wider choice, control and benefits from "network effects" - the virality and interconnectedness of the web.
In post-Hutton 2004, startup investor and former BBC strategy manager Azeem Azhar proposed a "BBC Public Licence" that would allow both the public and business to use BBC content and code to build on, play with and share. It seems his vision is finally coming to life. ...
Steve Bowbrick, recently commissioned to initiate a public debate about openness at the corporation, thinks empowerment could be as important as the traditional Reithian mantra, "Educate, inform and entertain." ...
What could the BBC create? It sits on a vast content resource, much of which is already being digitised under the BBC Archive scheme. It will take until 2022 to digitise material around each programme, from transcripts, audio, D notices and expenses to letters of complaint. The most significant part of the archive - 900,000 hours of TV and radio programmes - is likely to be the last thing to be digitised because of the complex rights issues.
BBC internet controller Tony Ageh says the notion of a dusty archive is now redundant; in the web era, everything is permanent and everything is, or should be, accessible. ...
In regional news, the BBC could make all its video reports, audio, text and comments available to commercial rivals and trigger a renaissance in local journalism. And it could allow people to remix BBC news footage for themselves, perhaps for a "day you were born" birthday present or a significant football match. ...
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
