Interesting People mailing list archives

Auntie's Digital Revolution


From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 07:10:29 -0400


X-Sender: nbr () popin newcastle ac uk
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 10:54:18 +0100
To: farber () cis upenn edu
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk>


Hi Dave:

For IP

I recommend the article "Auntie's Digital Revolution" in the computer section of today's edition of the Guardian newspaper. ("Auntie" is a well-known affectionate name for the BBC, at least here in the UK.)

The article describes in more detail than I, at any rate, have seen before the BBC's recently unveiled plans to make lots of its back catalogue of programmes freely available online, and documents the role played by Lawrence Lessig and Brewster Kahle in this decision.

The subtitle to the piece is however strange, in that it talks about making the archives "free for licence players", though it is not at all obvious from the actual text that there is any plan to restrict access to licence payers, leave alone how this might be achieved. (Here in the UK, you need to purchase an annual licence fee in order to operate a television set - these fess provide the BBC's main source of income.)

The article can be found at:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1030176,00.html

Cheers

Brian
--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/

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