Sections
1. Opening
2. Rick Prelinger Introduction (1:20)
3. Access (5:10)
4. Technology (27:56)
5. Cultural Production (33:29)
6. Civic Participation (37:47)
7. Q&A (44:51)
8. Close (57:55)

Part 1: Opening

Part 2:Rick Prelinger Introduction (1:20)

Part 3: Access (5:10)

Barriers

• access can be illegal
• contractual violation
• expensive
• risky
• impossible
• poor use of resources
• poor business decision
• access is a sticky door that gets stickier as the media gets richer

problems of de-contextualization when archival material used in broadcast media

Make source material available when its been excerpted.

Define access expansively and generously

Creative Archive Project

negative feedback surrounding opening up television archives

giving the public something back (license fee)

Cory Doctorow’s EFF Statement to BBC Board of Govs

Internet as Distribution Medium

Archives are now commercial.

History redefined.

Emergence of non-official personal archival material. (Industrial, Educational, Surveillance)

Our Media

Cult of Archives

CC License

Possibilities for Usage:
Free for public use.
High quality, warranted use must pay.

Today’s Remixer is Tomorrow’s Licensee.

The more an image is used, the more valuable it becomes.

The Most Valuable Image Time/Life Owns

getting over the risks of letting people use collections

If you think too restrictively about access you’ve already lost control.

Insufficiently assertive with donors- conceded right to block access.

Donors assume they retain copyright.

SRL Demo

Openness

People will consider archives irrelevent.

Try to draw a bar- a fraction- denominator is every kind of legitimate, non commercial use. The numerator is commercial use. Archivists need to enter the discussion of where that bar sits.

Risky in that it raises issues of property.

Copyright is for lawyers- archives are for preservation and access. Reclaim the higher ground about copyright.

• Archival access is being crippled by IP laws in which were created without archivist stakeholder input. Archivists need to begin thinking more strongly about copyright issues and law.
• Territory issues. Using copyrighted material draws label of infringer.

Bill Gates thinks open source and open content = communism.

chillingeffects.org

Take control of copyright issues.

Generational shifts in understanding of copyright.

The laws are outdated and poorly written and hurt corporations more than they know.

:27:48:034

Part 4: Technology (27:56)

Archivists are not coming to terms with technology.

Archives generally consume technology rather than create it.

Archives tend to delegate technology needs to outside parties.

Geeks are our friends.

Lack of access equates to invisibility.

4 to 5 million downloaded but still very few archives are going online.

Outsider artists don’t go to official repositories because they aren’t getting access. They go to google video, youtube, etc. Problem is terms of service.

Find a way to order, control, contextualize, annotate, catalog and serve up collections in a public matter, interact with the communities we serve and push the materials back into the culture that has demonstrated interest in such materials.

Part 5: Cultural Providers (33:29)

Archives are not institutions but cultural providers.

Access events are initiated by patrons rather than archives. This should not be.

Archivists can be distributors, producers and publishers:

• Northeast Historic Film
  
• Smithsonian Folkways
  

Disavowing these roles is reneging on access commitment

Archival privilege is disappearing due to media landscape

Become active agents in culture

Part 6: Civic Participation (37:47)

Time to look outward

Look out for the periphery- new ideas

Regional collections are now significant

Orgone Archive (via Jefferson Presents)

Archives may be shifting away from institutions

Must consider all possible methods of insuring preservation- may not happen in first class institutions

Consider the citizen scientist

Definition of openness and building it into the infrastructure of archives

Think of it as civic activity

Part 7: Q&A (44:51)

Clarification of differences between copyright and the creative commons?

• How to become citizen archivists when non-private funding is disappearing?

Southside Home Movies Project

• Has there been any movement in film archives and private archives toward getting over access and distribution problems? How does one decide what is worth saving amidst the glut of potential archival material?

• Speak about court case regarding orphaned works and the court case that is in appeal in the 9th circuit.

Waiting for a hearing.

• Has the creative commons license been tested in court?

Part 8: Closing (57:55)

The lecture portion of this podcast was recorded by CIDDE at the University of Pittsburgh and is copyright 2006 Rick Prelinger. The audio was used by Digital Citizen with permission from Mr. Prelinger. The lecture was part of a series on Policy, Ethics & Accountability sponsored by University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs‘ Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership and the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Science.

Digital Citizen would like to thank Mr. Prelinger for use of the audio as well as Toni Carbo, Richard Cox, Kevin Kearns, Karen Gracy and Carolyn Ban for putting together this lecture series and helping us set up this special podcast. We would also like to thank Kerry Harrity, who recorded the lecture for CIDDE.

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