The Future of Podcasting?

Amber MacArthur (of TechTV's Call for Help ), Mike Lazzazera, Brian McKechnie, and Jeff MacArthur bring you commandN - a weekly video webcast from Toronto about, appropriately, technology.

commandN is, as far as I know, Canada's first and only vidcast and they have a good head start. There are currently 21 episodes available on the commandN website. Whether or not technology is your thing, stop by and watch a few. This is surely a sign of things to come.

CBC content restrictions

Today I am going to be taking the CBC's pod-cast feeds out of the digests (the 'latest' pages). I considered putting CBC's news headlines in a corner of the page, but then I read the CBC's terms of use for it's RSS feeds and it appears I'm not allowed.

Many people have commented, before during and since the lockout that they wish the CBC would finally 'get it' with regard to podcasts and blogs, but the RSS terms of use make it clear that, at the decision making level, they don't really get the value of html and hyperlinks yet.

The Terms of Use reads in part:

ANY USE, REPRODUCTION, ALTERATION, MODIFICATION, PUBLIC PERFORMANCE OR DISPLAY, UPLOADING OR POSTING ONTO THE INTERNET, TRANSMISSION, REDISTRIBUTION OR OTHER EXPLOITATION OF THE CBC FEED OR OF ANY CBC FEED CONTENT, WHETHER IN WHOLE OR IN PART, OTHER THAN EXPRESSLY SET OUT HEREIN, IS PROHIBITED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF CBC/Radio Canada. WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE RESTRICTIONS ABOVE, YOU SHALL NOT PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE CBC FEED OR FEED CONTENT FROM ANY MOBILE WIRELESS SERVICES OR ANY INTERACTIVE TELEVISION SERVICE.

Since placing these feeds on the publicbroadcasting.ca site would clearly constitute a "public performance or display, uploading or posting onto the internet, transmission, redistribution or other exploitation of the CBC feed or of any feed content whether in whole or in part" they obviously cannot be used.

The terms of use also contains this:

you will not do any promotion or advertising involving CBC/Radio-Canada, the CBC Feed or Feed Content without the prior written authorization of CBC/Radio-Canada;

Since displaying the feed on a web site would, in and of itself, be a promotion of the feed and feed content - it is clearly not allowed to be displayed.

The internet runs on links. Links are the reason that html (hyper text markup language) was developed in the first place. By putting these kinds of restrictions on the use of their RSS feeds the CBC is essentially saying that they don't want people just going willy nilly and promoting their content. It is not, after all, as if people would be stealing their content - merely providing summaries of their content; ads (in a way) for their content and people would have to go to the CBC's site to access that content.

I can understand the CBC being concerned about the alteration or theft of their content, but to restrict the promotion of their content - regardless of who is trying to promote it - is essentially the same as saying that 'our website doesn't need any more traffic, our radio doesn't need more listeners, our television doesn't need more viewers. This, generally, seems like an odd thing for a broadcaster, especially one that is concerned about it's finances, to say. But maybe that's just me.

If I'm wrong: If I'm not reading the terms of use properly, I'd be delighted if someone told me. Until then I'll separate links to the CBC's content from everything else until the rules change and hope that the CBC gets up to speed and learns what the internet is for at some point.