C-SPAN is Public Minded, But Is It Creative?
A few months ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi posted clips from a C-SPAN recording of US House proceedings on her webblog. C-SPAN claimed that she had infringed its copyright in the recording. Mud-slinging ensued between Republicans and Democrats, because nothing in Washington avoids political spin, but C-SPAN has now changed its policies to allow the use. In fact, it now expressly allows “non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution.” C-SPAN press release.
William Patry, a copyright attorney whose past includes stints at various federal government agencies, including the US House of Representatives, makes an interesting point about C-SPAN’s generous grant of copyrights – they may not have any rights to grant. His argument that the mere recording of events, with no creative input into the recording or the way the material is presented, does not meet the requirement of a “creative work” that is even subject to copyright protection.
Just as pure compilations of publicly available data, such as phone books, are not subject to copyright protection, Patry argues that the mere recording of a public event is similarly not entitled to copyright. You can read his whole commentary on The Patry Copyright Bog.
The threshold for “creative” is pretty low. Courts have very clearly said that a work does not have to be good, or even close to good, to meet the test – but there is a threshold, and it’s good to be reminded.
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