The US General Services Administration (GSA) has announced an agreement for government-friendly terms of use with four social media companies--Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv--and they hope to reach agreement with others soon. (No need to negotiate with Twitter; their standard terms were acceptable for government use.)
GSA announced the agreement in a 25 March 2009 press release (posted to their site on 27 March). The release, titled 'Landmark Agreements Clear Path for Government New Media', states:
For the past six months, a coalition of agencies led by GSA has been working with new media providers to develop terms of service that can be agreed to by federal agencies. The new agreements resolve any legal concerns found in many standard terms and conditions that pose problems for federal agencies, such as liability limits, endorsements, freedom of information, and governing law.
Having these agreements in place will allow government to use free tools to dramatically increase access to information, offer education on government services and empower citizens with a voice in their government.
Government Computer News first reported the agreement on 25 March in their article GSA opens door to Web 2.0 content for federal agencies.
The Library of Congress welcomed the agreement in their own 25 March 2009 press release, 'Library of Congress Makes More Assets and Information Available Through New-Media Initiatives; YouTube and iTunes Launches Will Follow Groundbreaking Flickr Pact to Bring More Treasures to the Public'. The Library release outlines a few near-term plans:
The Library of Congress will begin sharing content from its vast video and audio collections on the YouTube and Apple iTunes web services ... The new Library of Congress channels on each of the popular services will launch within the next few weeks.
New channels on the video and podcasting services will be devoted to Library content, including 100-year-old films from the Thomas Edison studio, book talks with contemporary authors, early industrial films from Westinghouse factories, first-person audio accounts of life in slavery, and inside looks into the Library's fascinating holdings, including the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence and the contents of Lincoln's pockets on the night of his assassination.
Has anyone seen the agreements?
Posted by: Josh Tauberer | March 27, 2009 at 02:14 PM
Josh - the second half of this posting may help - http://tinyurl.com/dcojxt .
Posted by: Peggy | April 01, 2009 at 11:27 AM