The TechCrunch BBC Debate

Over the past few months there has been talk of the BBC opening there content up to 3rd parties, this seems to have been spurred on my Mike Butcher the editor for TechCrunch UK in several different posts. Mike has been calling for a public debate on the matter and he has got his wish, next week there will be a debate at Broadcasting House between several people from the BBC and the tech world.

The BBC is a public company which we all pay for so it only seems fare we should all have access to the content it has produced, the BBC recently announced plans to digitise all of their content and make it available on line which is clearly a step in the right direction but there are calls for them to go further.
Rather than just letting people watch the content it needs to be available for people to take and embed, edit and create better things with.
Having the ability to take TV shows or even entire series and embed them say into a fan site for that show would be a great thing for all the shows fans, the website and even the BBC as it all aids in the distribution of the BBC brand.

If the content was there to access, developers could build new websites and services to access and display the material, rather than the BBC spending millions of pounds on content delivery systems they could build an archive, a series of API's and focus on creating better content. There are clearly big copyright issues involved, there is generally a third party who has made the show for the BBC who would want a say or it may be a show the BBC has bought the rights to show either way this is probably where the problems will be and why the shows in the BBC's iPlayer are only available for 7 days.

I will do a followup post next week after the event.