Public Debate Footage Held Hostage to DRM

I have some concerns about the current method the Commission is storing
and distributing video footage of the Commission-sponsored candidate
debates. The video of
debates sponsored by a public entity, at public expense, should be
absolutely free to the public for any use to which they wish to put it.
Currently footage is being distributed via Windows Media with built-in
restrictions of reuse and republication.

1)    Public information should not be stored in proprietary formats
nor those using Digital Rights Management (DRM). The use of Windows
Media as a storage format tends to exclude anyone who does not wish to
support a proprietary standard and prevents the free use of the
footage. The video should be stored in an open source non-proprietary
standard format without any DRM restrictions such AVI, MPEG, or MP4.

2)    The content should not be limited to streaming at a citizen’s
computer. The content should be released to the public domain under a
Creative Commons  or equivalent license so that citizens, and candidates, may do with it
what they please, and repurpose and redistribute the content in any
fashion they see fit. The video must be made available for download,
not just streamed viewing.

3)    The content should not be licensed on any exclusive basis to any
vendor for distribution. Any distribution agreement must be
non-exclusive and vest no rights over content to the distributor. The
best solution would be to upload all video to services such as Google
Video and Yahoo Video to facilitate location, distribution, and
repurposing of all content. Services which create a IP lien on the
content as a condition of distribution in the licensing agreement
should not be used.

Please join me in expressing concern to the Clean
Elections Commission that fruits of the public process be placed fully
into the public domain.