Feds and YouTube close to reaching a deal to post video

Feds and YouTube close to reaching a deal to post video

By Gautham Nagesh 02/10/2009

The federal government is on the verge of reaching an agreement with YouTube that would allow agencies to make official use of the popular video-sharing service.

A coalition of federal agencies led by the General Service Administration's Office of Citizen Services has been negotiating with Google, YouTube's parent company, since summer 2008 on new terms that would allow agencies to establish their own channels on the site.

Agencies have not been able to post videos to YouTube (although many already have) because, under the current terms of service, people who post content on the site are subject to their state libel laws. Federal agencies must adhere to federal law.

A larger obstacle has been YouTube's policy that videos are the responsibility of the person who posts the content. If federal agencies post a video on the site, the government considers it part of the public domain, and therefore does not consider itself to be liable for the content. For the federal channel, these clauses would be removed.

"I think that the previous rules of various kinds have restricted a lot of things that people want to do for using Web 2.0 technologies," said Mark Drapeau, a government consultant who writes about Government 2.0 for Mashable, a social media Web site. "Now post-election it's pretty clear those restrictive rules will loosen up and there will be more freedom to use these tools in government. It will behoove everyone to have a more cohesive strategy and more people from agencies involved in planning that strategy or carrying it out."

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090210_7927.php