open letter to BBC creative archive
I recently sent this letter to the BBC requesting permission for educational use of some of their past radio 4 In Our Time programme material.
Dear BBC creative archive people
I am a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Canterbury. I would like to access some of the digital content produced by the BBC for educational use but as my educational use is in NZ and your filtering sytem is effective at prohibiting access, I cannot. That is a shame for both personal and professional reasons. It is the professional (non commercial) reasons which lead me to write to you now.
I regularly listen to BBC's radio 4 "In our time". Indeed i subscribe to a podcast of that program , and i have quite a nice personal library of bbc radio 4 In our time mp3 files built up from podcasts and your excellent archives of streamed content ......all of course for my personal use ( typically listening in my car while i drive or while i am jogging). Recently I have been trying to obtain permission to access one particular In our time program titled "Man and Disease" to use this material as the basis for class discussion on economics of epidemics in an undergrad course I teach on health economics.The idea is to load it onto our streaming server on our university intranet where via password protection access is limited to those who are university students. This is a 40 min programme available for anyone, inside the UK or out (like me) , to listen to from an archive of streaming files on BBC's radio 4 site. * So why do I want to upload to my university server and have it available for local access by students? Well prices . prices you ask?? . Let me first say that essentially i would like to place this programme "on reserve" in a virtual library accessible for students to use in a recognized universioty course...so there is nothing "commercial" about this use...at least as that term is increasingly understood as direct-for-$-profit. There is no marginal resource cost of access from the BBC Radio 4 streaming server archive, but here in new zealand studnets and staff face a 4ยข per Mb charge for international traffic. A typical BBC programme like this is about 40-50Mb as an mp3 file, so anyone accessing BBC from my university would pay between $1.60 to $2 each time they try to listen to this programme. Multiply this by 30 students and we're talking about $60 max....multiply by 300 students and we're talking $600 max...assuming only listening once. And we're only talking one file....there are plenty of others i would like to place "on rexerve" and hope, as alll us academics do, that students will read/look/listen at books/audio/video that we suggest but do not "require" - its an old fashined education thing I guess, but hey....i can't make the horse drink but i can put some water and wine and juice out for her to sample.....How much less expensive for students if there is one copy on reserve that they can share out? - this is just the basic argument for any local public good - users sharing costs and uncongested useage to improve efficieny. Everyone is better off and no one is worse off - me as an edcuator, my students as they get access to great resource materials, the BBC becasue it is continuing a tradition of creating easy convenient inexpensive public access for their listeners -who are not just resident in the UK by any means -
The problem is that i have been informed by BBC worldwide learning service that they will need to charge 150 british pounds (about $400) nz for a tape of this programme this programme. So you see my dilemma - as an educator and as an economist. There are two agencies (nz's telecomms provider and BBC broadcaster charging me prices for permissible activities fro an educational use which are vastly in excess of any incremental resource costs. [PS my telecomms actually charges me nothing on the margin, up to a 3Gb limit per month, fo international traffic on my home use plan but they stick it to the university -and every other business in nz - with volume based useage fees] Paradoxically one arm of the BBC agency (radio 4 archive) actually makes this program available for real time streaming after 7 days of mp3 download...all for no fee, for anyone anywhere in the world for personal use. Another arm, wordlwide learning, would charge $400NZ for access to the content for educational use, and a third arm (or leg) would eventually make this stuff free for non commercial use AND transformation in all forms, but restrict that to IP addresses inside the UK. Meanhwile - i can invite these 30 students around to my home to share with me listening to an mp3 file of this program that I have and (i think) i can use this way , but i dare not put that mp3 file on reserve inside a locked library in my university (realtively speaking)
SO you see my dilemma.
I would like to add that I am willing to contribute content to be served from the BBC creative archive project - eg audio video of seminars lectures inside our university, and minimally inside our department. Of course I am not the only ones who decides these issues but i am also willing to argue the case for reciprocal digital content agreements between my department/school/university as a way of accessing the creative archive material. How can we set soemthing in train so that eventually this will happen. We non commercial educational use types are not free riders - we'd love to find a way to contribute to this gigantic club : how can we make it happen??
Why might this be on interest to you? I have recently been listening/watching the fascinating seminars at oxford internet institute . We at the University of Canterbury have a visiting fellowship programme with about 30 top class international seminar speakers in science engineering economics, easily the equal of the calibre at the oxford site. How terrific to exchange these? - indeed no "exchange" is necessary - the oxford site simply makes their recording available on the web - no geographic restriction. Thank you oxford. Can u do this BBC?
Dear BBC creative archive people
I am a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Canterbury. I would like to access some of the digital content produced by the BBC for educational use but as my educational use is in NZ and your filtering sytem is effective at prohibiting access, I cannot. That is a shame for both personal and professional reasons. It is the professional (non commercial) reasons which lead me to write to you now.
I regularly listen to BBC's radio 4 "In our time". Indeed i subscribe to a podcast of that program , and i have quite a nice personal library of bbc radio 4 In our time mp3 files built up from podcasts and your excellent archives of streamed content ......all of course for my personal use ( typically listening in my car while i drive or while i am jogging). Recently I have been trying to obtain permission to access one particular In our time program titled "Man and Disease" to use this material as the basis for class discussion on economics of epidemics in an undergrad course I teach on health economics.The idea is to load it onto our streaming server on our university intranet where via password protection access is limited to those who are university students. This is a 40 min programme available for anyone, inside the UK or out (like me) , to listen to from an archive of streaming files on BBC's radio 4 site. * So why do I want to upload to my university server and have it available for local access by students? Well prices . prices you ask?? . Let me first say that essentially i would like to place this programme "on reserve" in a virtual library accessible for students to use in a recognized universioty course...so there is nothing "commercial" about this use...at least as that term is increasingly understood as direct-for-$-profit. There is no marginal resource cost of access from the BBC Radio 4 streaming server archive, but here in new zealand studnets and staff face a 4ยข per Mb charge for international traffic. A typical BBC programme like this is about 40-50Mb as an mp3 file, so anyone accessing BBC from my university would pay between $1.60 to $2 each time they try to listen to this programme. Multiply this by 30 students and we're talking about $60 max....multiply by 300 students and we're talking $600 max...assuming only listening once. And we're only talking one file....there are plenty of others i would like to place "on rexerve" and hope, as alll us academics do, that students will read/look/listen at books/audio/video that we suggest but do not "require" - its an old fashined education thing I guess, but hey....i can't make the horse drink but i can put some water and wine and juice out for her to sample.....How much less expensive for students if there is one copy on reserve that they can share out? - this is just the basic argument for any local public good - users sharing costs and uncongested useage to improve efficieny. Everyone is better off and no one is worse off - me as an edcuator, my students as they get access to great resource materials, the BBC becasue it is continuing a tradition of creating easy convenient inexpensive public access for their listeners -who are not just resident in the UK by any means -
The problem is that i have been informed by BBC worldwide learning service that they will need to charge 150 british pounds (about $400) nz for a tape of this programme this programme. So you see my dilemma - as an educator and as an economist. There are two agencies (nz's telecomms provider and BBC broadcaster charging me prices for permissible activities fro an educational use which are vastly in excess of any incremental resource costs. [PS my telecomms actually charges me nothing on the margin, up to a 3Gb limit per month, fo international traffic on my home use plan but they stick it to the university -and every other business in nz - with volume based useage fees] Paradoxically one arm of the BBC agency (radio 4 archive) actually makes this program available for real time streaming after 7 days of mp3 download...all for no fee, for anyone anywhere in the world for personal use. Another arm, wordlwide learning, would charge $400NZ for access to the content for educational use, and a third arm (or leg) would eventually make this stuff free for non commercial use AND transformation in all forms, but restrict that to IP addresses inside the UK. Meanhwile - i can invite these 30 students around to my home to share with me listening to an mp3 file of this program that I have and (i think) i can use this way , but i dare not put that mp3 file on reserve inside a locked library in my university (realtively speaking)
SO you see my dilemma.
I would like to add that I am willing to contribute content to be served from the BBC creative archive project - eg audio video of seminars lectures inside our university, and minimally inside our department. Of course I am not the only ones who decides these issues but i am also willing to argue the case for reciprocal digital content agreements between my department/school/university as a way of accessing the creative archive material. How can we set soemthing in train so that eventually this will happen. We non commercial educational use types are not free riders - we'd love to find a way to contribute to this gigantic club : how can we make it happen??
Why might this be on interest to you? I have recently been listening/watching the fascinating seminars at oxford internet institute . We at the University of Canterbury have a visiting fellowship programme with about 30 top class international seminar speakers in science engineering economics, easily the equal of the calibre at the oxford site. How terrific to exchange these? - indeed no "exchange" is necessary - the oxford site simply makes their recording available on the web - no geographic restriction. Thank you oxford. Can u do this BBC?
posted by john fountain at
10:47 a.m.
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