Parliament footage is nearly impossible for constituents to use
I recently contacted the administrators of parliamentlive.tv to see about getting access to about five minutes of footage from a House of Commons session I wanted to include in a video project.
Being that this was a public proceeding, lacking any sort of national security concerns and having to do with the common good, I thought this should be a fairly simple process. After all, the footage is openly available on a government website. It’s already been filmed, edited and posted. Getting the raw file should be no big deal. As it turns out, however, UK Parliament keeps about as tight a control on its content as the BBC does an episode of Doctor Who.
The response I got back cautioned me that “The situation relating to the use of Proceedings of Parliament on website is very complex.” And while I could freely link to any recording on the Parliament website I wanted to, should I actually choose to host and play a clip anywhere else or combine it with a video project, “this would be possible subject to a number of conditions.”
We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.
