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RTE wants to sell us something we’ve already paid for

Eoin O’Dell’s request to have the Irish election debate made freely available has been turned down. Everybody in the debate studio will have been paid by the taxpayer. Yet us taxpayers won’t have the right to make non-commercial copies of the debate.

I recently tried to get a licence to show some RTE news footage on Votetube. I filled in all the forms on their website to make the request over a week ago. I have heard nothing back. As a result, viewers have been deprived of relevant footage and RTE has been deprived of revenue.
RTE just doesn’t get what the Internet is doing to media.

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  1. Hi Antoin, as far as the headline on your post goes, RTE have been at this for a while now.

    That is selling archived material on DVD without bothering to re-broadcast the programmes. A good example is ‘Hall’s Pictorial Weekly’, which IMO many would enjoy to see on TV again.

    RTE is in the strange position of being a public service broadcaster dependent on commercial revenue for survival.

    The total income split (€405m in 2006) was 55% from commercial and 45% from the licence fee.

    Selling us programmes we’ve already paid for is the triumph of commercial imperatives over public service obligations.

  2. >>Selling us programmes we’ve already paid for

    Yeah and we have to watch ads when its broadcast so lets add this up.. yes we’re paying for it thrice. Thrice I tell thee!

  3. I hate the way RTE insist on using RealPlayer for all online media (we all know how painful RealPlayer is with all it’s junkware installed by default). I have been requesting them to offer an alternative format for viewing for over four years now and even contacted the minister about it. No luck.

Webmentions

  • Lex Ferenda » Next, let’s kill all the lawyers August 20, 2007

    […] Eoin (with help from others) has been trying to persuade RTÉ to make the footage of the election debates (Ahern-Kenny plus the four-way ’small parties’ debate) available without restrictions. This would mean that people would be free to use clips from the debate on their own website (whether to promote or oppose someone!), to incorporate elements in their own videos or AV productions, and indeed to use extracts in parody or criticism. RTÉ refused Eoin’s initial request (while pointing out that they would make the debates available for viewing – but not re-use) earlier today. Antoin says that they’re wrong. We can blame Lessig for this whole idea, although he’s been more successful than we have! […]