BBC Creative Archive

Greg Dyke announced last night that the BBC plans to open up its archives to the public, for free. That’s reason enough for some sort of nationwide street party, but this line from Dyke’s speech seems to promise even more:

Under a simple licensing system, we will allow users to adapt BBC content for their own use

Does this mean the BBC archives will be available to all under a Creative Commons-like license, as a resource for education and research, even for making new artwork?

The mind boggles. A lot.

More information and comment:

• BBC News: Dyke to open up BBC archive
• Danny O’Brien: This is a bigger story than it looks at first glance
• Alan Connor: …if ever the licence fee were justified, or the starry-eyed internet advocates validated, it’s now.
• MetaFilter discussion

Posted at 12pm on 25/08/03 by Jack Mottram to the web category.
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