Yesterday I posted a video clip of Steny Hoyer on the House Floor. The clip was from C-Span. I posted it to YouTube, where it still remains.

Luckily it looks like I might be ok in spite of the recent rash of YouTube bannings for copyright violations. This came to light by another apparent fight that the right-wingers wanted to start with Pelosi and Kos pointed out:

Earlier today, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) released a document about the Speaker’s use of copyrighted/trademarked C-SPAN material on a Congressional website.  The document was based upon a conversation that RSC staff had with Barry Katz, the Manager of C-SPAN Video Assets (and the employee identified as being directly responsible for answering questions to Congress about the use of C-SPAN material).

Bruce Collins, the Corporate Vice President and General Counsel of C-SPAN, called post release and said that the information provided by the C-SPAN employee to the RSC was incorrect.

Given this contradictory information, the RSC wanted to be the first set the record straight and withdraw the information included in the release.

Matt Stoller then came in on the issue and gives us this piece of info:  

Floor proceedings are televised, and that material is public domain because the cameras are owned by the government.  Committee proceedings, though, are not.  Here’s Metavid, a collaborative project attempting to democratize government content, on the issue.

Metavid is able to re-use the video footage of the House and Senate floor that C-SPAN airs because it is a government work. When a government employee creates something as part of his or her job, the resulting content is public domain. As Lamb’s letter references, C-SPAN already has its own cameras in committee chambers. C-SPAN’s coverage of committee hearings, such as the Alito nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee, is perhaps more nuanced than the head-on shots found in floor proceedings. During some of the tougher questions, cameras captured the reactions of his family — that would not be possible under the current house rules. I would love to link to a clip in our archives illustrating the difference, but the fact that the cameras are privately held has another effect; the footage is copyrighted.

Now all this talk of copyrights and public domain can quickly set ones head a-spin, but it deserves some further attention. Unlike the battle some bloggers have had with YouTube over the posting of hate speech or truly copyrighted material from The Daily Show, this involves proceedings happening in the halls of our Congress. Even more important is the fact that this material is video taped with cameras bought by the tax payers, being operated by people whose salary comes from the tax payers. So we should not have to pay for it twice.

But after reading all this and thinkng about it, I got checking out C-Span’s site. It appears that C-Span wants to remove the key factor that keeps these debates in the public domain. A letter was sent to Nancy Pelosi December 14 from Brian Lamb, the CEO of C-Span. Instead of posting the entire letter, I will just give the first part, which is the most important: 

After your party’s November 16th leadership elections, you held a news conference in which you pledged to lead a congress committed to openness. In that spirit and as you and lour leadership team work through the many organizational decisions needed for the110 Congress, we’d like to make two requests of you which we were unsuccessful in pursuing with the incoming Republican majority twelve years ago:

• Allow House floor proceedings to be covered by C-SPA N cameras.
• Release individual House votes electronically immediately after voting periods
  have closed

Independent media cameras have long been permitted.d in congressional committees, yet for nearly 30 years, television cameras in the House chamber have operated under the control of the Speaker. This compromise was crafted long ago to convince wary members to allow congressional sessions to be televised, and in the ensuing years it has become an anachronism that does a disservice to the institution and to the public. During debate, congressional technicians are limited to taking static, head-on shots of the representative who’s speaking at the podium. Rules and established practices prevent congressional cameras from taking individual reaction shots or from panning the chamber, leaving viewers with an incomplete picture of what’s happening in the House of Representatives.

You can read the entire letter here (PDF File).

So this little request, which on the outside looks honest and harmless enough, contains a much deeper repercussion to it. If Pelosi would have allowed this to happen then C-Span could quickly claim copyrights on debates that happen in our Congress and that would limit sharing it via sites such as YouTube.

So this brings to question the following. Should C-Span be allowed to make money off of our political process? As it stands right now they would most likely loose any challenges in court. If they were to go after someone for copyright infringement then all the defendant would have to say is “hey – didn’t I pay for this already with my taxes?”.

I am sure that there are other reasons for keeping the cameras out of Congress. If they open it up to C-Span, then they must open it up to everyone else and next thing you know we have C-Span, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and every other channel you can dream of filling the halls with their cameras.

Now if this were allowed to come to being, then I have a suggestion for Nancy Pelosi – do it with a caveat. That caveat is simple – the broadcasts are still available for public domain. If C-Span does not like that then the other option is to pass laws requiring all cable and satellite providers to provide a free channel to all subscribers that carry public-domain footage of the House Floor. That along with a website offering the same. This is our democracy and transparency is the most vital key to keep it a democracy. Having publicly available footage from the process is a must to keep this going.