Creative Commons is offering Catalyst grants of up to $10K empower individuals and communities deeply rooted in the principles of openness and sharing. The current configuration requirements that limits Open Media implementations to hosting in the same physical location as the archive and playback server have been a deal breaker for many stations. Most stations lack the bandwidth and/or staff with system and network administration skills required. A few weeks ago, I described changes that could be made to the modules to simplify the workflow. channelAustin agreed to fund these changes so they can make better use of their ContentAgent encoder, but the same changes also move the Project one step closer to a solution that can be used with Drupal sites installed at low cost, shared hosting providers.
The next step is to develop code that looks at the video in an existing archive, pulls the metadata about the video from Drupal or directly from the playback server, and pushes that video to an external CDN. I've applied for a Creative Commons Catalyst Grant to develop a CC Uploader for Drupal to do just that. John Hauser from Access Humboldt has already written code to move content from a Princeton server to Archive.org. This Uploader is different in a few key ways, but I plan to leverage as much of John's code and time as this project can afford. One big difference is that while the CC Uploader could be configured to upload all content to a collection owned by the station, it will also allow stations to upload the video to the CDN as the producer who submitted it. There are only a few situations where I'd recommend the organization retain ownership of the content they didn't produce in the CDN. The biggest downside is the user or organization that owns the container the content is stored in is going to be responsible for responding to take down notices for content that is incorrectly licensed, violates the CDN's policies like failing to flag videos that contains adult content, or even dealing with requests for more information from people who like the content. It has the potential to be a huge burden on organizations that tend to have very limited staff already. I've always felt that while the public access station could help to facilitate uploading content CDN's like Archive.org or Blip.tv, it should be uploaded as the producer who submitted it to the station.
The CC Uploader will be designed to work in lower bandwidth environments that are more common in public access. Stations with a business class DSL or cable modem can configure the CC Uploader to only upload video during hours the station isn't open so it doesn't interfere with day to day operation. When configured with Drupal, the Drupal site would attach the file from Archive.org, Blip.tv, or other CDN getting video. Since the videos are being served from Archive.org or Blip.tv, the organization isn't stuck with bill for bandwidth. The only Open Media module stations would need to install is an updated version of om_show. This would give stations a well formatted form for their producers to complete that used the PBCore and Creative Commons modules to standardize metadata. Stations can easily extend the om_show form to include any additional agreements they require.
If you'd like to see Creative Commons fund the CC Uploader for Durpal with a Catalyst grant, please add a note indicating your support here. The more stations describing how this would help them share more Creative Commons licensed content with the rest of the world, the more likely the Uploader's development is to be funded.