Lessig Launches Open Transition Principles 129
soDean writes "The Principles for an Open Transition and a petition were co-launched by Lawrence Lessig, Mozilla, and the Participatory Culture Foundation today. This was in reaction to the announcement that Obama would be posting his transition videos to YouTube.
The petition encourages Obama to publish his transition videos with open licenses, make them available for download, and preferably use royalty free/open video formats and standards. Unless YouTube makes some radical changes, the videos will need to be hosted elsewhere."
You do the work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the Office of the President Elect (web address: Change.gov) is a federal government office, anything it produces is automatically in the public domain.
But here's the problem with Lessig and company... it costs money to mount a video service, especially something that would be as popular as this is. If The Mozilla Foundation (main funder: Google) is willing to convert and host the videos, then the most likely could get the source from the governement. If they're complaining to YouTube (owner: Google) to change their ways, then they're just biting the hand that feeds them.
Don Pratt says... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Don't listen to other people who make these claims. Either they're trying to hook up with you, or THEY'RE LAWYERS!!!"
I'm also fairly certain that material that comes out of that office cannot be copyrighted, and I'm also certain that as long as the videos can be viewed by anyone, the videos have served their purpose.
Flash movie on the homepage (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice. Something ever so slightly silly about that.
Re:Stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
material produced by the federal government of the United States is automatically public domain
And where I work, YouTube is a blocked website that would prevent me from seeing Obama's messages. Something like transition.whitehouse.gov or speeches.whitehouse.gov would be a more suitable host for these videos.
The new administration should attempt to disassociate itself with corporate giant Google and open standards running on websites that aren't regarded as "a giant waste of time" who's aim is to give every man, woman, and child (no matter how talentless) a platform to "Broadcast Yourself".
Re:You do the work. (Score:3, Insightful)
*Is* the Office of the President Elect a part of the federal government, though? AFAIK it's being run by the Obama-Biden Transition Project, which certainly isn't a federal office, regardless of it being hosted on a .gov domain.
That said, Obama et al have responded to Lessig just a little while ago in making Change.gov licensed under CC-BY, rather than just a straight copyright [lessig.org]. (You can also view the Change.gov copyright policy page [change.gov].) Once again, I'm surprised and kinda shocked by how quickly they will respond to people. It's almost like they're responsible to the people or something.
Re:This just irks me (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it makes sense to have a transition website. Calling it an "Office" is simply semantics, and I don't think he means to imply any sort of authority (note that he's repeatedly said that he respects the current administration's control until the inauguration).
Posting his communications on the campaign website wouldn't make much sense because it's no longer a campaign.
Not having a website at all would be completely at odds with the need to communicate with the people.
What would you suggest he do?
YouTube making a pretty penny (Score:2, Insightful)
If Obama wants to be fair to commerce he shouldn't align his content solely with YouTube.
Re:The comments so far are missing it (Score:3, Insightful)
I really don't understand #3 at all. If it's free, and in the public domain as other commenters have pointed out, what's the problem?
The issue with #3 is fair competition. For example, they might release a video press release to the major network, and then a day later post a lower-quality version on their website for download. In this case, the major networks were receiving preferential treatment (both because they were given earlier access and access to a higher-quality version).
The point is that in addition to openness, there should be fairness: the content should be made available to everyone (citizens, news outlets, corporations, etc.) at the same time, with the same quality, with the same "ease", and under the same terms. This means that companies are able to compete fairly in their dissemination/commentary/reporting/whatever (instead of one company having an advantage of some sort). This also means that citizens have the same opportunities for analysis/commentary/mashup that corporations do.
Re:The comments so far are missing it (Score:3, Insightful)
perhaps Professor Lessig doesn't realize that a YouTube video must be downloaded to be viewed, at least in a manner that would have the RIAA sue you if it was one of their copyrighted works.
Not only does Lessig understand this, he wrote a book addressing the issue, aside from it being a note in most everything he does; Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. He mentions in a number of speeches and such that copyright is a law that comes into effect when a 'copy' is made. "Reading a book, sharing a book, selling a book, and sleeping on a book don't make copies, so there no 'trigger' for copyright law". What has thrown the whole system into chaos is that in the digital world "every act creates a copy, thus every use is regulated". When you view a web site, it makes a copy in menory on your computer. every time a packet runs through a router, the information is copied and recopied for it to reach its destination. In this respect it makes as much sense to call this copying as it is tp say that reading puts a copy of the book in your head. It is true, but I don't think that was the intent of the law.
To stress the point, what you say he "doesn't realize" is really what he has built an entire career upon trying to explain to people.