[open-government] Jason Kitcat, copyright and closed government

[Steven Clift]

The use of copyright to limit the political expression of elected officials
is censorship IMHO. Government use of copyright to constrain political
activity may be within the law, but I don't think such a right has been
exercised. This could be a huge test case. Ultimately, any constraint that
limits reuse of government information and data for political purposes is an
attack on open government.

Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
  Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
  Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
  New Tel: +1.612.234.7072


2010/11/1 Tim McNamara <paperless at timmcnamara.co.nz>

> 2010/11/2 Jim Killock <jim at openrightsgroup.org>
>
> Hi folks
>>
>> If you're concerned with abuse of copyright to keep government closed and
>> create censorship, please consider signing our letter defending Jason
>> Kitcat, a Brighton Councillor and Advisory member of ORG who posted Youtube
>> clips of council meetings taken from Brighton and Hove Council's website.
>> They are claiming that, as copyright materials, they are a 'resource' which
>> Councillors may not use for political purposes.
>>
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> Thanks for this. Are you able to provide any more details? Your link
> doesn't provide a full explanation of the facts. I would like to  see the
> context in which those videos were made. While videos seem prima facie as if
> they're reliable, selective editing and commentary can mask the truth.
>
> More broadly, I disagree with your statement that a council's enforcement
> of their copyright creates censorship. They're not censuring anyone, they're
> merely exercising their legal rights. As it stands, you've described a
> situation where someone has acted outside their mandate, downloaded content
> and then redistributed that content. That looks like theft. I'm sure
> Councillor Kitcat could have raised a motion at the council to have its
> officers post the content onto YouTube.
>
> Please provide a fuller explanation of the facts.
>
> Regards,
>
> Tim McNamara
> Masters candidate in Public Policy,
> Victoria University of Wellington
>
> _______________________________________________
> open-government mailing list
> open-government at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-government/attachments/20101101/7bba79b1/attachment-0001.html>