[Rumori] US government exclusively licenses Smithsonian film footage to Showtime networks

[Bob Boster]

bb> This is interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/01/arts/television/01smit.html?ei=5090&en=829
3d567dfc155d7&ex=1301547600&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=114
4146348-H2VPIzWQokGw1Id7le7Kuw


My source for this link indicates that this is likely to be illegal and we 
should expect that this will be thrown out in court.  This agreement 
reverses policies clearly stated in the other direction under Clinton and 
Bush the Elder.


(paste in)

April 1, 2006

Smithsonian Agreement Angers Filmmakers
By EDWARD WYATT
Some of the biggest names in documentary filmmaking have denounced a recent 
agreement between the Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks Inc. 
that they say restricts makers of films and television shows using 
Smithsonian materials from offering their work to public television or 
other non-Showtime broadcast outlets.
Ken Burns, whose documentaries "The Civil War" and "Baseball" have become 
classics of the form, said in an interview yesterday that he believed that 
such an arrangement would have prohibited him from making some of his 
recent works, like the musical history "Jazz," available to public 
television because they relied heavily on Smithsonian collections and curators.
"I find this deal terrifying," Mr. Burns said in a telephone interview from 
San Francisco, where he is filming interviews for a documentary on the 
history of the national parks. "It feels like the Smithsonian has 
essentially optioned America's attic to one company, and to have access to 
that attic, we would have to be signed off with, and perhaps co-opted by, 
that entity."
On March 9, Showtime and the Smithsonian announced the creation of 
Smithsonian Networks, a joint venture to develop television programming. 
Under the agreement, the joint venture has the right of first refusal to 
commercial documentaries that rely heavily on Smithsonian collections or 
staff. Those works would first have to be offered to Smithsonian on Demand, 
the cable channel that is expected to be the venture's first programming 
service.
A Smithsonian official who is managing the institution's content and 
production assistance for the venture said yesterday that while the new 
arrangement did limit the ability of commercial filmmakers to sell some 
projects elsewhere, it ultimately would affect a small number of the works 
that draw on the museum's resources.
"It's not our obligation to help independent filmmakers sell their wares to 
commercial broadcast and cable networks," said the official, Jeanny Kim, a 
vice president for media services for Smithsonian Business Ventures.
"What it boiled down to is that we don't have the financial resources, the 
expertise or the production capabilities," she added, to continue to 
provide extensive access to materials but not to reap any financial benefit 
from the result.
She said films that made incidental use of a single interview with a staff 
member or a few minutes of pictures of elements of the Smithsonian 
collections would be allowed.
The Showtime venture, under which the Smithsonian would earn payments from 
cable operators that offered the on-demand service to subscribers, comes as 
the Smithsonian has suffered financial problems. At a Congressional hearing 
on Wednesday, a Smithsonian official said some necessary repairs to 
Smithsonian buildings could not be made because of lack of financing. That 
led to a suggestion by Representative James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia, 
to suggest that the institution should charge admission, a proposal that 
its board of regents has rejected repeatedly.
The Showtime agreement began attracting widespread attention this week as 
filmmakers said they had been told that some of their projects might fall 
under the agreement. Two Smithsonian curators, who were granted anonymity 
because they feared for their jobs if they spoke publicly about the 
Showtime venture, said in interviews yesterday that they could not be 
certain what kind of projects would be subject to the restrictions because 
details of the contract with Showtime had been shared with few employees 
below the executive level.
Linda St. Thomas, a Smithsonian spokeswoman, said the details of the 
contract with Showtime were confidential and would not be released 
publicly. She said the outlines of the agreement had been left deliberately 
vague to allow the Smithsonian to consider "on a case-by-case basis" 
whether a proposed project competes with its new television venture or not. 
A Showtime executive, Tom Hayden, said the deal was not intended to be 
exclusionary but was intended to provide filmmakers with an attractive 
platform for their work.
One well-known filmmaker, Laurie Kahn-Leavitt, said she had been told 
recently by a Smithsonian staff member that her last film, "Tupperware!," a 
history of the creation and marketing of the venerable food-storage 
containers, would have fallen under the arrangement, because much of the 
history of Tupperware is housed at the Smithsonian. The documentary, which 
won a Peabody Award in 2004, was broadcast on "American Experience," the 
PBS show produced by WGBH, the Boston public television station.
"This is a public archive," Ms. Kahn-Leavitt said. "This should not be 
offered on an exclusive basis to anyone, and it's not good enough that they 
can decide on a case-by-case basis what they will and won't approve."
Margaret Drain, a vice president for national programs at WGBH, said she 
feared that public television programs like "Nova" and "American 
Experience" would suffer greatly because of the new restrictions.
"These are programs that regularly rely on the collections of the 
Smithsonian Institution," she said. "If access is restricted, we are really 
going to be in trouble."
She added: "I'm outraged that a public institution would do a semiexclusive 
deal with a commercial broadcaster."