BBC providing digital news archives to British users online

BBC providing digital news archives to British users online

UK based broadcasting giants BBC has announced that they are opening up their news archives for their users in the domestic market and would be providing the digital versions of some of the biggest news events of last four decades on the net. Under this rollout, BBC has released around 80 news clips under the Creative Archive License.

These clips cover some of the biggest news stories of our times and include events like the 9/11 in New York, the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the 1980s miners strike and coverage of the 1966 World cup final. They are for now allowing only the UK based web users to access this exclusive content on the internet. In fact, they are allowing these videos for editing and programming for non-commercial purposes.

As a result, web users can use these clips studying, research purposes, and also make their own exclusive programming with them. Moreover, they have also shown interest in knowing how the web users can make good use of this content being provided to them. Paul Gerhardt, Project Director of the Creative Archive License Group said in a statement: “The BBC’s telling of those stories is part of our heritage, and now that the UK public have the chance to share and keep them we’re keen to know how they will be used. Whatever you do, let us know – and help to shape the future of the Creative Archive.”

These videos are already available on the web in various popular digital formats like QuickTime, Windows Media, MPEG1, and MP3. And they have further plans to add to this list in the future as they analyze the user response on this unique initiative. If you are residing in Britain and want to access these clips, you can visit the BBC Open News Archive site.