Washington - C-SPAN, the Congressional cable network, on Wednesday announced a new copyright policy for its video coverage of Congressional activities that will make about half of all of its programming available for free sharing, provided it is attributed properly and not used commercially.

C-SPAN said its new policy borrows from the Creative Commons approach to copyright, and is "intended to meet the growing demand for video about the federal government and Congress, in an age of explosive growth of video file sharers, bloggers, and online 'citizen journalists.'"

The new policy covers all congressional hearings and press briefings, federal agency hearings, and presidential events at the White House, but does not incude the network's studio productions, non-federal events, campaign and political event coverage, and feature programming like "Book TV."

"The C-SPAN board sees this as helping us carry out C-SPAN's public service mission," said C-SPAN executive committee chairman William J. Bresnan.

C-SPAN also announced plans to significantly build out its CapitolHearings.org website, which provides webcasts of House and Senate committee and subcommittee hearings.

Related Links:
http://www.c-span.org/about/press/release.asp?code=video

http://www.capitolhearings.org

http://www.creativecommons.org