PRPD Leaders continue to block public use of Taxpayer-Paid Board Meeting videos!

I told you about a recent meeting at MickyD’s with my fellow-blogger-nemesis , Bob Trizna, and a couple of my friends.

It’s funny how things happen when you least expect it. Here we were discussing subjects we wholeheartedly disagree on and presto, we stumble into one of mutual interest and agreement; something that effects the entire community; open, transparent and accountable governance, including the unencumbered use of publicly funded open board meeting videos. I went on to describe PRPD’s recent assertions of copyright protection.

To my amazement, Bob expressed his disagreement with the Park District’s assertion that those publicly-funded, publicly-accessible videos were copyrightable. Bob also indicated that, even if the Park District held a legitimate copyright for those videos, he believed the public had a right to their fair use for informational, non-commercial purposes; and that it was bad public policy for the District to attempt to enforce any such copyright to stifle public debate on Park District issues and actions, reducing transparency and accountability to the detriment of the taxpayers.

Park Ridge Park District is not the only local taxing body taking cover under or behind copyright protection. For example: Evanston-Skokie School District 65 Idiocracy.

The assertion that public-money can be used to support a copyright claim on publicly funded open meeting videos, a claim even the Federal Government refuses to make, will probably, some day end up costing PRPD taxpayers significantly more attorney-fee money than its worth.

In the mean time, Butterly on Senior Issues, PublicWatchdog and others who wish to display video clip dialogue of open public board meeting can always resort to this:

So, is PRPD’s copyright assertion the right thing to do?

What do you think?

Of course, as always, it’s just my opinion.