Open content licensing of public sector information and the risk of tortious liability for Australian Governments

There has been an increasing interest by governments worldwide in the potential benefits of open access to public sector information (PSI). However, an important question remains: can a government incur tortious liability for incorrect information released online under an open content licence? This paper argues that the release of PSI online for free under an open content licence, specifically a Creative Commons licence, is within the bounds of an acceptable level of risk to government, especially where users are informed of the limitations of the data and appropriate information management policies and principles are in place to ensure accountability for data quality and accuracy.

YouTube versus the national film and sound archive: Which is the more useful resource for historians of Australian television?

This article compares YouTube and the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) as resources for television historians interested in viewing old Australian television programs. The author searched for seventeen important television programs, identified in a previous research project, to compare what was available in the two archives and how easy it was to find. The analysis focused on differences in curatorial practices of accessioning and cataloguing. NFSA is stronger in current affairs and older programs, while YouTube is stronger in game shows and lifestyle programs. YouTube is stronger than the NFSA on “human interest” material—births, marriages, and deaths. YouTube accessioning more strongly accords with popular histories of Australian television. Both NFSA and YouTube offer complete episodes of programs, while YouTube also offers many short clips of “moments.” YouTube has more surprising pieces of rare ephemera. YouTube cataloguing is more reliable than that of the NFSA, with fewer broken links. The YouTube metadata can be searched more intuitively. The NFSA generally provides more useful reference information about production and broadcast dates.