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Al Jazeera launches Creative Commons video repository

by Mikasi | January 14, 2009 at 05:13 am

237 views | 75 Recommendations | 8 comments

I'm posting this for those of you doing news on the Gaza Strip who have been jonesing for footage to accompany your reports. And I am sure more than a few of you have been discouraged by the lockout of reporters and photographers from the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera launches Creative Commons video repository
January 14, 2009 at 11:31 am · Filed under copyright, media and tagged: Creative Commons, Joi Ito, Al Jazeera, Gaza, Lawrence Lessig, Mohamed Nanabhay

Al Jazeera yesterday announced the world’s first repository of broadcast-quality video footage released under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license. Select Al Jazeera video footage – at this time, footage of the War in Gaza - will be available for free to be downloaded, shared, remixed, subtitled and eventually rebroadcasted by users and TV stations across the world with acknowledgement to Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera will release its exclus

While many will see this as a venue for a disinformation campaign it is also a valuable tool for getting to see a side of things viewing of which has been actively and tacitly discouraged in the US.

And in another bit of news that might be useful, this from the New York Times -

Thus far, however, Al Jazeera has largely stayed away from the blogging that is common on news sites, though that is being reconsidered, Mr. Nanabhay said.

“Especially during these crises, they present a lot of opportunity to use these tools, and the value becomes apparent very quickly,” Mr. Nanabhay said.

Mr. Minty has been focusing on the introduction of a platform at aljazeera.net to allow the public to contribute opinion or “citizen journalism,” ideas that he said were still new to the Arab world.9

While some might see this as another outlet for their current news writing, I am posting is because it could well become a source to help beef up the writing many here are already doing.

Also, please note that the story from the NYT does not focus on the citizen journalism angle - this is just an aside. The focus of the article is on Al Jazerra's unique advantage on reporting from Gaza and how the service can use this in its efforts to better penetrate the U.S. news consumer markets.

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Heritage

at 05:51 on January 14th, 2009

Thanks for this. Great news!

Paschen

at 06:10 on January 14th, 2009

That is incredible and I wonder if others will follow.

Jordan Yerman

at 06:22 on January 14th, 2009

A really interesting story: Al jazeera has clearly realized that any exclusive footage they may have will have trouble penetrating the North American market via traditional partnerships, so at least this way it gets seen. Their Youtube channel was the early stage of this project, whose repercussions could be huge.

(Other news outlets use Youtube, but either keep their videos up for brief periods, or only post snippets)

dowdinsk

at 07:30 on January 14th, 2009

Since the War on Iraq increasing numbers in the UK have turned to Al Jazeera (and to TheRealNews too) to verify anything on the Middle East put out by the BBC.

This, as with anything CC, is good stuff!

Art_By_Alida

at 08:18 on January 14th, 2009

I have been getting Al Jazeera from YouTube for a long time. You can go there and subscribe to their videos and everytime they post a new one, you will get an email.

I started watching Al Jazeera after they published Bin Ladin's video where he gave an open message to the USA, saying his ultimate goal was to bankrupt the US economy.

Al Jazeera is THE news source for the Arab world.

However, as with ANY news source, you have to take everything with a grain of salt, because propaganda is not exempt from any media source.