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

[Tim Cowlishaw]

Oops.. should have read Michael's email before replying, looks like he's
already covered much of this. Apologies!

Tim

On 3/21/07, Tim Cowlishaw <tim at timcowlishaw.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 3/19/07, Saul Albert <saul at theps.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> > How about something short and relatively simple like this:
>
>
>
> short and simple sounds good... :)
>
> -------------------------
> > 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
> > 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:
>
>
> the role of the PSP as part of an international community is the key thing
> here, IMO, we need to emphasise the public benefit of opening access outside
> the UK (in order to avoid a similar situation to the Creative Archive).
> Paula was talking on Saturday about the PSP being a 'node on a global
> network', which might be a nice way of phrasing it. In any case,  I think we
> should emphasise that opening the PSP's services up internationally would
> increase the public benefit for UK citizens, rather than decreasing it.
>
>
> - Free, Libre and Open Source (FLOSS) technologies and systems.
>
>
> I heartily agree! Also, an emphasis on reusing existing infrastructure
> would be good too (eg. not building a PSP-branded you-tube clone, when
> youtube / blip.tv are already there and perfectly fit-for-purpose. I'd
> like to see the PSP taking part in developing some sort of metadata standard
> for community-generated media, and perhaps providing some sort of
> aggregation service for it, however I don't think it's necessary for the PSP
> to implement it's own publishing platform when there's services available
> that will do the job already.
>
> (see p.45 of the discussion doc, para 5.33: "It is not envisaged that the
> PSP should be set up as a distribution platform in it's own right..."
>
> - Advocacy and educational initiatives about viable alternatives to
> >   restrictive Intellectual Property (IP) for publicly funded projects.
> > - 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.
>
>
> This would be great... I'd like to see the PSP fulfilling a similar role
> to the British Library (ideally to a far greater extent) in terms of
> providing consultation on IP policy that reflects the public interest. Might
> any involvement in legislative process / lobbying run counter to the PSP' s
> public service remit though?
>
> - Decentralized systems for the distribution of data and metadata (peer
> >   to peer systems) for publicly funded and user generated content.
>
>
> See comment above. Zoe (from transmission.cc) might have something to say
> about this, are you on-list, Zoe?
>
>
> > - Open Source Semantic Web services and infrastructures for greater
> >   association and interlinking and searching of online resources.
> >
> > 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.
>
>
>
> As above, I wholeheartedly agree. Also, I think it might be worth adding a
> paragraph applauding their decision to use liberal licensing, and to request
> that they use a CC licence rather than a scheme similar to the Creative
> Archive (which is erroneously described as 'a variant of the
> creative-commons' licence on p.42, para 5.21) - referring back to the
> importance of being part of a global community. It might also be worth
> noting that we'd encourage a PSP which was more concerned with providing an
> infrastructure for community creativity, rather than commissioning works
> from established media outlets that operate in the 'new media' space.
>
> Happy to draft these in, if everyone agrees....
>
> Cheers,
>
> Tim
>
>
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