Progress Illinois

In addition to MediaPost's article on our ongoing copyright dispute with Fox Chicago, Mashable editor-in-chief Adam Ostrow picked up the story this morning.  Here's his take:

Ignoring the copyright issue – where ProgressIllinois would seem to be in the right anyhow – Fox News is simply being ignorant in terms of how to utilize the Web. Having clips re-posted with commentary adds more exposure for their content, at no additional cost, since the videos are hosted on YouTube or other video sharing sites. Further, if Fox News’ issue is that they want to be compensated for the clips, they could do a deal with the video sites to make clips available and include ads. Instead, Fox News has just had the content taken down, which is of no benefit to anyone.

ProgressIllinois tells Online Media Daily that they are prepared to sue Fox News over the takedown. But, that shouldn’t be necessary. The company should see the light and do what’s good for everybody, including themselves, by letting ProgressIllinois use the clips.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation chimed in yesterday as well.  And attorney Ben Sheffner wrote about the issue on his blog Copyrights & Campaigns last night.  While Sheffner may be right about whether our counter-notification is in order (I'm looking into that now), it's most likely beside the point.  On Monday, I sent the memo to an acquaintance at Fox Chicago.  The legal team and general manager there have read it and expressed interest in coming to some agreement.  Meanwhile, Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen has agreed to represent us in our talks with the station.  There should be more news to share on that front in the coming days.

Meanwhile, if you're interested in learning about the policy side of this, be sure to read Levy's recent blog post proposing revisions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.