Contributed By Cynthia Zollinger, WGBH
The WGBH Educational Foundation hosted a conference on “Open Content and Public Broadcasting” in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 19-21 September 2006. With support from the Hewlett Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, WGBH brought together over 100 participants to explore issues related to producing and distributing open access content across multiple public broadcasting platforms.
Attendees included key stakeholders in the public broadcasting system, academics who have promoted Open Content in higher education, industry leaders in new media and technology, experts in intellectual property rights, and leaders in philanthropy. Together they examined how the Open Content movement might further public broadcasting’s public service mission, emphasizing the need for new strategic business models and sustainable solutions.
Speakers discussed existing models and efforts that might guide public broadcasting initiatives in Open Content such as the WGBH Lab Sandbox, a pilot Web project that makes clips from WGBH’s Media Library available for use in creating new works. In addition, participants addressed possible barriers and opportunities for public broadcasting in the Open Content field. The conference discussions were very upbeat about the opportunities for placing large amounts of high quality video content on the web for free. Click here to visit the WGBH Forum Network and hear streaming audio of the conference speakers, including keynote speaker and BBC Creative Archive Project Director Paul Gerhardt, PBS President Paula Kerger, Hewlett Foundation Education Director Marshall Smith, WGBH President Henry Becton, Mozilla Foundation Chair Mitch Kapor, Yale Law Professor Yochai Benkler and Creative Commons Board member and Professor of Law at Duke University, James Boyle.