[FC-discuss] Free debates: the university perspective

[Gavin Baker]

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As you may know, in 2008 the United States will hold presidential
elections, and the contest has already started. Some of the defining
moments in the campaign will occur during televised debates. The audio
and video of these debates will be broadcast on a variety of media
outlets, most of them private, and will be copyrighted. As Lawrence
Lessig wrote a few weeks ago:

"Technology has exploded the opportunity for people to comment upon, and
spread political speech. Democracy is all about encouraging citizens to
participate in that debate. And all of us, whether Democrats or
Republicans, should push to remove unnecessary burdens to that
participation.

Unfortunately, however, the uncertainty about the scope of copyright
regulation is increasingly one such burden on Internet political speech.
This next political cycle will see an explosion of citizen generated
political content. Some of that speech will be crafted from clips taken
from the Presidential debates. Some of that will be fantastically
valuable and important. Yet as the law is right now, it is extremely
difficult for an ordinary citizen to understand the boundaries of 'fair
use,' or the limits to copyright law. It is likewise difficult for
companies such as YouTube, or Blip.tv. Indeed, it is even difficult for
a skilled practitioner. That uncertainty, if not checked, could produce
a cloud over much of this political speech, as sites and universities
don't know how much is too much. It will certainly create a temptation
by some politicians to invoke copyright law to block particularly
effective speech critical of them."

Therefore, Lessig circulated a letter signed by technology experts and
political activists to the parties, asking them to require media outlets
to release the debates into the public domain or the CC Attribution
license. To date, neither of the parties has agreed; Democratic
candidates Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Chris Dodd have endorsed the
proposal; CNN has agreed, Fox and MSNBC have not.

To bring a new angle into this, many of these debates, and debates for
other political offices, are held at universities. What do you think
about asking universities to request that media outlets, as a condition
of using their campuses, would apply this proposal? This seems in line
with universities' historic commitment to free expression.

Gavin
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