[Imc-oxford] Local BBC contact - for reference

Mon Sep 6 03:24:33 PDT 2004

Yeh, I second that. We are supposed to be providing an alternative 
source of information, because we believe that the mainstream media by 
it's nature cannot give a voice to anyone other than a tiny minority of 
people. 

I went through the terms and conditions that you /have/ to agree to 
when setting up an account with them, and identified the areas where it 
sucks the most as compared to indymedia:-

+ Proprietary copyright (rather than free and open copyleft):
-------------------------------------------------------------

"All rights, including copyright and database right, in bbc.co.uk and 
its contents, are owned by or licensed to the BBC, or otherwise used by 
the BBC as permitted by applicable law.

In accessing bbc.co.uk, you agree that you will access the contents 
solely for your own private use but not for any commercial or public 
use. You can download and use the service on a single CPU at a time and 
you can print out a single hard copy of any part of the content on 
bbc.co.uk for your personal use.

Except as permitted above, you undertake not to copy, store in any 
medium (including in any other website), distribute, transmit, re-
transmit, broadcast, modify, or show in public any part of bbc.co.uk 
without the prior written permission of the BBC or in accordance with 
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988."

+ Sketchy Terms of use:
-----------------------
  "The BBC may change these terms at any time by posting changes 
online. Please review these terms regularly to ensure you are aware of 
any changes made by the BBC. Your continued use of bbc.co.uk after 
changes are posted means you agree to be legally bound by these terms 
as updated and/or amended."

+ Stealing your rights to your own work:
----------------------------------------
   " Where you are invited to submit any contribution to bbc.co.uk 
(including any text, photographs, graphics, video or audio) you agree, 
by submitting your contribution, to grant the BBC a perpetual, royalty-
free, non-exclusive, sub-licenseable right and license to use, 
reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works 
from, distribute, perform, play, make available to the public, and 
exercise all copyright and publicity rights with respect to your 
contribution worldwide and/or to incorporate your contribution in other 
works in any media now known or later developed for the full term of 
any rights that may exist in your contribution, and in accordance with 
privacy restrictions set out in the BBC's Privacy Policy. If you do not 
want to grant to the BBC the rights set out above, please do not submit 
your contribution to bbc.co.uk."
 "          * 10.3 waive any moral rights in your contribution for the 
purposes of its submission to and publication on bbc.co.uk and the 
purposes specified above."

+ No 'causing trouble(!)'
-------------------------

"   ... contributions must be constructive and polite, not mean-
spirited or contributed with the intention of causing trouble."
"   * If you use multiple logins for the purpose of disrupting the 
community or annoying other users you may have action taken against 
your accounts."

+ No right to anonymity:
------------------------
"* No impersonation"

+ Can't link to other websites:
-------------------------------
" You may not refer to specific URLs (web site addresses) unless 
allowed under the relevant local house rules. If you know of a worthy 
web site relevant to the discussion topic, please inform the host of 
the Community area."

+ Can't encourage people to do actions, or perhaps even report about 
them in a positive way:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
    "* Contributing material with the intention of committing or 
promoting an illegal act is strictly prohibited."

+ Sinister censorship type stuff: 
-------------------------------
"If you post or send offensive or inappropriate content anywhere on or 
to bbc.co.uk Communities or otherwise engage in any disruptive 
behaviour on bbc.co.uk, and the BBC considers such behaviour to be 
serious and/or repeated, the BBC may use whatever information that is 
available to it about you to stop any further such infringements. This 
may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, 
school or email provider about the infringement/s."

+ Cookies and invasion of privacy: 
----------------------------------
" During the course of any visit to bbc.co.uk, the pages you see, along 
with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see 
point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because 
cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out 
whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site 
before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, 
the cookie left there on the last visit."

+ Discrimination against young people:
--------------------------------------
"6. Users 16 and under

If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's 
permission beforehand ..."

Picture the scene, it's 9:03 on 6 Sep 2004, and richard hering says:

| I think ox-imc has a policy of not collaborating with the mainstream media in this way.  And indymedia is anyway not a campaigning organisation, having no editorial line whatsoever.  This kind of approach comes all the time from people who can't even be bothered to find out what indymedia is.  Do you remember that research project from the Netherlands?  And what on earth are our "campaigns against violence in the war against terror"?  Does she mean the "war on terror" should be pursued in a less violent way?  
Is this the same as John Kerry's more "sensitive" approach, so that the "war" can be won.  And let us recall that research has shown that the BBC was more pro-war in its coverage than the other channels.  
| But the main point is, I think we should have nothing to do with helping the BBC to have a semblance of "community outreach".
|  
| Richard and his early-morning rant
|  
|  
|  
| Eileen Cameron-Kirby <eileen at cameron-kirby.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
| Dear All
| I presume this email refers to the indymedia website, though I've also
| recently set up one for NOW. I'll just send her an acknowledgement for the
| moment, though we might want to follow up the contact later, in the name of
| outreach. I'll be posting a report later today about last Thursday's meeting
| of the Oxford NUJ, too.
| Cheers
| Eileen
| 
| ____________________________________________________________________________
| ____________________
| 
| Subject:BBC News
| Date:Thu, 2 Sep 2004 20:18:35 +0100
| From:"Anna Lindsay" View Contact Details
| To:eileenck2003 at yahoo.co.uk
| 
| 
| Hello. I've seen your website about your campaigns against violence in the
| "war against terror". Are you still campaigning on these issues, or others?
| I was wondering whether you'd be interested in writing about your work on
| our campaigning website www.bbc.co.uk/ican .
| All you need to do is click on the blue link above, click on "create your
| BBCi membership" at the top of the page and then click "campaigns" to write
| about your work. Just follow the easy steps.
| Then, users of the website will be able to read about the work you do.
| Thanks very much in advance - I hope this is of use to you.
| Anna
| Anna Lindsay
| Senior Broadcast Journalist for iCAN!
| BBC Oxford
| Tel: 08459 311 444
| Work mobile: 07834 846 022
| www.bbc.co.uk/ican
| 
| 
| _______________________________________________
| Imc-oxford mailing list
| Imc-oxford at lists.indymedia.org
| http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-oxford
| 
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