Read this morning that the Smithsonian is selling off the nation’s attic to Showtime. This is madness. It is already hard enough to make documentaries thanks to the insane restrictions on use of copyrighted works, now our the rights to film our heritage is being sold off, next up the big National Archives/HBO deal.

I am well aware that providing access to these artifacts isn’t free, and a reasonable charge wouldn’t be out of line, but restricting access to only those who agree to work within this deal cannot be good for the country. I know several people who have made signifigant donations to museums in the past, do you think they thought they were donating to Showtime?

Update I am amazed at the lack of coverage on this issue in the media. Here a publicly funded organization is selling off access to our culture to a private TV network, how can this possibly be a good thing? I have just written my Congressman and both Senators on this, I ask if this interests you at all to please to do the same.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 4th, 2006 at 2:01 pm and is filed under Copyright, History, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.