The BBC’s “Creative Archive” project - which will offer BBC material to the public to use, non-commercially, as they see fit - has gathered many mentions in the press and around the web in previous months, although there’s been relatively little to show for all the talk. That’s all changed, with the launch of the Creative Archive Licence Group site.
The site’s main purpose is “to keep you up to date with how the BBC and the other partners in the Creative Archive Licence Group will make programmes available under the licence“. A “roadmap” for future development is currently available from the site. It shows how the archive will take shape and roll out to the public in slowly growing stages. The pilot scheme is scheduled to take 18 months.
The project’s primary goal for now is to develop and refine a licence under which Creative Archive content (to be supplied by organisations including: the BBC, Channel 4, the British Film Institute, and the Open University) can be distributed. This may not sound very exciting, but it is key in the provision of such archive material; the licence material is offered under needs to limit potential use of the material (so that the creator’s copyright is still of value) but also legally allow use of the material by third parties. The scheme is similar to Creative Commons, and the License Group acknowledge the influence of the CC licenses on their own.
It may seem a slow start, but already material is emerging. The BFI have now launched their own Creative Archive site that will host any material they release under the licence. Currently, a few silent films from the early twentieth century are available.
The team are treading carefully, as they are still learning and considering how best to implement the project. After all, there’s never been a scheme quite like the Creative Archive. If successful, the Creative Archive could set a precedent for other projects worldwide. The pilot scheme launches soon; hopefully there will be even more exciting developments to report on in the coming weeks.