In Wired yesterday, Cory Doctorow sums up recent brave efforts by the BBC to adapt to a changing world: BBC Backstage, the Creative Archive, and reader-contributed photos.
“America’s entertainment industry is committing slow, spectacular suicide, while one of Europe’s biggest broadcasters — the BBC — is rushing headlong to the future, embracing innovation rather than fighting it. Unlike Hollywood, the BBC is eager and willing to work with a burgeoning group of content providers whose interests are aligned with its own: its audience.”
Above is a clip from a 1913 silent film version of Hamlet, downloadable for free from the British Film Institute under the aegis of the Creative Archive – one of the few bits of free content made available so far. It feels good to make a video quotation with total impunity. Perhaps others will be inspired to take a page from BBC’s book.
Here also is Rick Prelinger‘s speech to the Creative Archive Seminar in April. Prelinger is one of America’s great activist archivists.