This is excellent news:

President-elect Obama has championed the creation of a more open, transparent, and participatory government. To that end, Change.gov adopted a new copyright policy this weekend. In an effort to create a vibrant and open public conversation about the Obama-Biden Transition Project, all website content now falls under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

This may be one of those moments where people will think I’m obsessing over small details, and to some extent its true. But this is a very important gesture, with real consequences. The Obama team has shown some real savvy about the opportunities and implications of new media. I was very glad to see that they plan to post their weekly address online and to their YouTube channel, making online video the 21st century replacement for the radio “fireside chats” of FDR. Opting to make these videos, and the other materials they post, open for redistribution and reuse opens up a wealth of material for citizen commentary. More than that, it indicates their commitment to transparency, free speech, and participation.

On the other hand, it’s worth noting that publications of the federal government, like court decisions and Senate reports, are traditionally in the public domain, i.e. with no copyright at all. The whitehouse.gov site does not have a copyright statement that I could find, so its not clear what their policy is. One might argue that, with a CC license, the Obama campaign is being slightly more restrictive than should be expected. However, by posting the CC license, they make an explicit assurance to users that they my distribute and remix as they see fit, which is by far the bigger issue. The very absence of a copyright statement on the current White House site could leave re-users in a grey area, unsure of their rights. The Obama teams commitment goes further, in that the online videos will be accompanied by a link to a high-res Quicktime version, so those interested in excerpting and remixing will not have to make do with the low-res YouTube version.

This is also a substantial vote of confidence for Creative Commons, and yet another moment in the slow move towards the widespread recognition that copyright maximalism simply cannot persist online, and a more moderate balance of rights is required.