[okfn-discuss] OFCOM Public Service Publisher (PSP) consultation response

[Michael Holloway]

I took some brief notes on this very-encouraging consultation paper last
night (using ORG's wiki cos confused by markup language on FCUK), but may
not have time to summarise beyond the Executive Summary...
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/orgwiki/index.php/Ofcom_PSP_Consultation_March_2007#Next_steps

FYI input sought in particular on:

   - The appropriate nature of intervention in the digital media age, and
   the balance between TV and non-TV forms of public service content
   distribution
   - The potential role of the PSP and its creative remit
   - The operating model – in particular, the approach to rights
   management
   - The scale of funding required.

For ORG's, the main areas for comment are:

1. Licensing: encouraging best practice for sharing and reuse

2. Internationalisation: if PSP is to be truly open, content must be open to
all nations, not merely UK taxpayer (i.e. must avoid Creative Archive
experience). Better to see the PSP as one node on a global network, such
that investment now will bring net benefit to UK public in time

3. PSP can help the move away from 20th century's 'Broadcast' model
and production companies / content creators by contributing to
an architecture of participation
Pleased this is coming together now...

On 3/20/07, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:

> Saul Albert wrote:
> [snip]
> > So - having looked through the other responses posted to the ofcom site
> > - where my original blog post was re-posted, I think something much
> >   more recommendation-like and less rant-like is in order.
> >
> > How about something short and relatively simple like this:
>
> I think this looks good but I have quite a few comments (see below). To
> my mind the essential thing is that the most effective use for PSP
> funding would be:
>
> 1. Developing infrastructure (including documentation) to assist others
> to create (open) content.
>
> 2. Seeding the knowledge (content/data) space by sponsoring the initial
> development of open material and open projects to get to the them point
> that they can then be taken on by the community (the history of F/OSS is
> full of examples of projects that needed some upfront investment of
> money/time/energy to get to point they became self-sustaining)
>
> > -------------------------
> > The founding of a Public Service Publisher (PSP) is an opportunity to
> > make a significant ongoing investment in the vast landscape of publicly
> > owned knowledge and the public knowledge infrastructures already
>
> suggest: publicly owned -> open
>
> > developing on the Net.
> >
> > We, the undersigned would like to see the PSP joining the international
> > communities of individuals, organisations and enlightened states
> > investing in:
> >
> > - Free, Libre and Open Source (FLOSS) technologies and systems.
>
> Suggest:
>
> - Open Content and Open Data. In particular we urge that, where the PSP
> fund the generation of new content, such content should always be made
> available under a license such that others are free to use, redistribute
> and most importantly re-use that content.
>
> > - Advocacy and educational initiatives about viable alternatives to
> >   restrictive Intellectual Property (IP) for publicly funded projects.
>
> Not quite sure about this one: are we arguing that they should use the
> PSP to educate other governmental departments about openness?
>
> > - Advocacy and educational initiatives for people, companies, local
> >   government and organisations to publish their materials and public
> >   data in open, traversable formats, using open APIs.
>
> I completely agree with the open formats item (and it is part of the
> open knowledge definition
>
> As I've posted about previously I have my concerns regarding open APIs
> vs. just having open data/open services. What good is an open API if the
> underlying data isn't open (so I can't redistribute or re-use that data
> freely).
>
> > - Decentralized systems for the distribution of data and metadata (peer
> >   to peer systems) for publicly funded and user generated content.
> > - Open Source Semantic Web services and infrastructures for greater
> >   association and interlinking and searching of online resources.
>
> This is a nice item but a) this is a rather massive area :) b) is it
> really what one wants the PSP doing (perhaps but I'm just concerned that
> as a recommendation it is just too broad to have much impact)
>
> > We feel that the PSP could have a vital role in addressing the strategic
> > concerns of the Net as a global and national infrastructure; exploring
> > and protecting the educational, commercial and societal possibilities of
> > what 'public service' might mean in this new context.
>
> Nice ending.
>
> ~rufus
>



-- 
Michael H Holloway
+44 (0) 7974 566 823

http://www.openbusiness.cc/
http://www.openrightsgroup.org
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