BBC's surprising views on copyright!

Following the topic of the performance of the BBC, as mentioned yesterday, you can see that I am not alone in my criticisms.

IPKat, on her blog, has brought an interesting item to our attention.  This is another case of double standards, courtesy of the official purveyor of propaganda for the UK Government (and by proxy for the Church of England).  Speaking on the topic of copyright she says:

The issue has become topical recently owing to an official complaint made by Mr Andy Mabbett to the BBC, claiming that in its coverage of rioting in Tottenham on 6 August 2011 the BBC may have infringed copyright by using photographs from Twitter without permission of the authors and without properly attributing them. The first response by the BBC was a rather surprising statement that:

'Twitter is a social network platform which is available to most people who have a computer and therefore any content on it is not subject to the same copyright laws as it is already in the public domain. The BBC is aware of copyright issues and is careful to abide by these laws'.

The parts of this post that are in italics are - I regret - used without permission.  However, I think IPKat will appreciate the link and the expression of solidarity, and I trust that this taster will lead you to go to her site to read more.

Read more of the wisdom of IPKat.

I particularly liked her interpretation of the copyright laws to the copying of BBC TV programmes.  Some of those programmes are actually quite good and it might be nice to keep a copy!