The Cyberlaw Clinic has teamed up with WGBH to support the extraordinary Boston TV News Digital Library project. The project, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Council on Library and Information Resources, is a collaboration among the Boston Public Library, Cambridge Community Television, Northeast Historic Film and WGBH Educational Foundation that aims to bring to life local news stories produced in and about Boston from the early 1960’s to 2000. The Clinic’s work with WGBH has focused on offering guidance to news media archivists on legal issues associated with archiving news content.
To that end, the Clinic and WGBH are pleased to announce the release of the “Digitizing News Archives” flowchart, which provides a high-level overview of some key legal questions that may arise when one digitizes news content and makes it available online. The chart offers a suggested order of operations and a process for considering and managing legal risks while striving to maximize the availability of historic footage and other media content online.