Opinion:  Understanding the history of the MCTV dispute

Darin Boville publishes Montara Fog

The current dispute over the rights to recordings of public meetings goes back a couple of years. If you click on the “Video” menu at the top of the Coastsider main page you’ll see, for me, where this issue all began.

I have a strong interest in open government (my education is in public policy) and had been heavily contributing to Coastsider since about a year after I arrived here in the Fall of 2004. Initially those contributions took the form of still photographs but they quickly evolved to more elaborate projects, such as documenting each of the speakers at the 2006 Board of Supervisors LCP update hearings and writing extensive captions quoting from each speaker. You can still see the photographs in Coastsider’s new gallery area but the captions seem to have been misplaced: http://coastsider.com/gallery/index.php?album=lcphearing2_0

Then came Barry’s March 4th, 2006 post--it is the earliest entry under the video tab, on page eleven.

That was the post where Barry reported on a newsworthy event at the HMB City Council Meeting and used a clip from MCTV’s broadcast of the meeting to inform viewers about what had happened.

MCTV’s response? Their lawyer claimed copyright on the taxpayer-funded video and demanded that Coastsider remove the footage.

This was shocking.

If a citizen wanted to see that footage they would have to find out when it was playing on Channel 6 (if they hadn’t already missed it), and sit through who-knows-how-many hours of tedious meeting footage until they reached the newsworthy portion. And what if they wished to share the clip with others? Too bad--the video is broadcast only once and MCTV doesn’t maintain an archive.

That HMB City Council footage seems to no longer exist. For all practical purposes--by trying to gauge the extent to which that footage was seen by the public--that footage might as well have never existed at all.

As I have written elsewhere about MCTV’s broadcasts of government meetings, “They might as well project them in my garage for all the public dissemination they seem to achieve.”

I thought Barry’s March 4th post was just great--it was just the sort of thing I thought was good for the Coastside: A window on how the government works and a flavor of an event that was nearly impossible to capture in print. Putting aside which faction of the local scene was favored by that particular video, I felt that the coast needed more of this sort of thing, not less. After having moved here from the Washington, DC area and finding our small-town area the most politically polarized place I had ever encountered, I felt that Coastside citizens would benefit immeasurably from more information about our many local governments and our many local governments would benefit immeasurably from a citizenry that was more informed about their doings.

I was, quite frankly, pissed when MCTV forced Barry to remove that clip from Coastsider. I saw it, perhaps in idealistic terms, as an anti-democratic force blocking off the information flow vital to our society. We were already ruled largely by powers “over-the hill"--now even our local institutions were to be essentially invisible to us?

Shortly after the post was removed I spent $4000 on my own video camera. If MCTV wasn’t willing to let the public have easy access to the meetings of its own government then I would shoot the meetings myself.

Fast forward eighteen months. Coastsider has been publishing my videos, not just of government meetings but of all sorts of things, and the videos have proven popular. Many people comment to me about the change in the character of government meetings since they began appearing on Coastsider. I start my own web page, Montara Fog, based upon photography and video.

All of this time MCTV remains unchanged. They seem asleep, seemingly unaware of the web. For year after year their web page is nearly stagnant, dominated by “under construction” animations. Barry repeatedly attempts to reach a compromise with them about the meeting videos, tries to help MCTV to understand the web world and to show them that allowing greater distribution of the videos would be a win-win deal. They don’t agree and turn a deaf ear.

Then, this past December, I began to distribute a proposal to shoot and distribute meeting videos for Coastside government agencies. I offer, via Montara Fog, to do it for a fee similar to what MCTV charges for their services. I am critical of MCTV in my proposal, challenging many of the basic tenets of MCTV’s world-view and challenging the value of their service to the public.

By and large our elected officials respond. It turns out that the issue of copyright has never been debated or deeply explored. The idea that someone other than MCTV might shoot the meetings has rarely been raised. The fact that, given the technological and social changes in news dissemination over the years since MCTV’s founding, there was now a viable alternative to MCTV, a revelation that is frightening to some--those who cling to a broadcast-centric mental model of the world--and invigorating to others--such as elected officials who struggle with empty meeting rooms and limited public feedback.

MCTV responded with their own proposal, essentially transferring their broadcast model over to the web--in their proposal you can watch the broadcast live on Channel 6 or a simulcast on the web. For a limited time you can watch the older videos.

MCTV slept as the web became a primary distribution network for news and for video. They are trying to wake up now, to catch up now, but I think they are stumbling badly. For example, they repeatedly insist that sites like the Half Moon Bay Review, Coastsider, and Montara Fog cannot use clips of their footage. And they insist that if they aren’t the ones hired to shoot a meeting then they won’t broadcast it.

They can cling to these threads from the nearly pre-web world of1995 because when their contract with San Mateo County was written thirteen years ago no one thought to include language that addressed these issues in any way--this was long before web video. But that contract expires in two years. Time is running out for MCTV.

The debate about MCTV reminds me in many ways of the letter by Supervisor Rich Gordon in the Half Moon Bay Review where he was critical of the Midcoast Community Council and suggest that it has lost touch with the public and that if it cannot regain its public support then it might be dissolved.

MCTV, too, has lost touch with the public. It is not serving them well. I am hard pressed to find anyone who watches MCTV. I am hard pressed to turn on Channel 6 and see anything besides text ads and elevator music. As MCTV tries to move into a world on the Internet in which it has zero institutional experience it leaves behind a cable channel that cries out for attention—that cries out for improvement. Our community access channel is dying and its limited funds are being thrown away willy-nilly as it desperately tries to extend its monopoly.

Only as a result of this recent threat to their comfort zone has MCTV shown any life. They have a monopoly on Channel 6, granted by the government. By refusing the broadcast videos they themselves didn’t shoot they extend that monopoly to the video production market, which hasn’t been granted to them by the government and is well-served by commercial offerings. And by maintaining a copyright on their taxpayer-funded videos they prevent their use by news organizations and web pages thereby further extending their monopoly into yet another market. This is where MCTV’s efforts are directed.

This situation is not good for the public. It is not even good for MCTV. The intensity of this debate underscores that Channel 6 still means something to people. If MCTV would focus its resources into improving its television programming rather than in extending its monopoly then that would set it on a path toward becoming a cherished institution on the Coastside.

It would be a healthy, challenging environment for MCTV. A cable channel home base, protected by the government, but still free to compete based upon merit in the video production and web distribution markets. It would give MCTV the best of both worlds and would give them the incentive and exposure to new ideas they need to innovate and to move ahead. The public would love it.