BBC Creative Archive

Alison Perrit has a nice article on the BBC Creative Archive Project at Spiked magazine, "Bringing the past to life
The pros and pitfalls of the BBC's attempt to digitise its archives."

"At the Royal Television Society on London's South Bank on 28 October 2004, Paula Le Dieu, co-director of the Creative Archive Project, described the aim as to 'provide fuel for a truly creative nation', helping the public to become active participants in the BBC's creative output. Although works enjoying ongoing financial reward might never make it on to the archive, Le Dieu argues that television classics such as Fawlty Towers have a high profile and vibrant commercial life already. It is programmes that have not been aired for years that are of concern - without digitisation, the investment and knowledge contained in these works may go to waste.


Le Dieu acknowledges the difficulties of copyright clearance, describing rights ownership in BBC archival works as a 'complex ecology' through which 'we must know how to negotiate a path with rightholders for the dusty library to see the light'. "