James Duncan Davidson/O'Reilly Media |
In March, Carl Malamud finished organizing release on the Internet of videos of Congressional subcommittee hearings. Back in November 2006 Malamud was lobbying the Smithsonian Institution to rescind its exclusive contract with Showtime. Now he's teamed up with others to multiplex such projects and get more done:
When you buy content, we get the material from the U.S. government and then upload the data to places like the Internet Archive, Google Video, and other fine content sources. Because this data is public domain, anybody can use the material without restriction!
— How Do We Do It? public.resource.org, accessed 9 June 2007
Per Lessig's agreement with CNN, we've uploaded both Presidential Debates to the Internet Archive:
Each buyer's basic incentive is knowing that they're making public domain information publicly available. Plus whoever buys an item can add some text that gets copied with the item. And each purchase is (probably going to be if they get their 501(c)(3) status) tax deductable.
The players involved are well known to the people who built the Internet:
Our founders are Carl Malamud and Marshall T. Rose. Our board of directors include Randy Bush and Hal R. Varian.
Add Brewster Kahl (Internet Archive). And Tim O'Reilly appears to be involved:
We'll be moving into our new offices at O'Reilly Media in Sebastopol shortly.
Score one or more for the real natives of the Internet.
-jsq
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