Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood free on Mars?
Paul D. Fernhout
their publicly subsidized works; again this relates to "open source planet".
A rant on the tragic example of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood:
For me personally, I feel the single biggest tragedy along the lines of
non-profits hording information for private gain (even to just make more
proprietary works) is the inaccessibility of "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Rogers'_Neighborhood
on Youtube. Maybe someday this link will show them:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Mr.+Rogers%27+Neighborhood%22
There are only a handful of episodes on DVD you can buy:
http://www.fci.org/products.asp?categoryID=4
The rest of the episodes are kept locked away and doled out by the
non-profit PBS monopoly (to encourage TV addiction?). What of those who
chose (IMHO wisely) not to have a TV in the house? Or who live in another
English speaking country? Or whose children's current emotional needs for
learning about some topic, like the death of a pet goldfish, don't fit the
PBS schedule?
I bought maybe a quarter of the stuff they offer at FCI and it cost about
$400. It was well worth it to my family, but many new parents can't afford
that. Why isn't it all free?
From that site: "[Family Communications is] a nonprofit organization founded
in 1971 by Fred Rogers as the production company for MISTER ROGERS'
NEIGHBORHOOD."
Surely if Fred Rogers was alive today, I would expect he would want to see
his show indexed and searchable and hosted for free on Youtube, and the rest
on the internet for free. Isn't it just plain evil at this point for a
non-profit to do otherwise? Especially with $55 trillion expected over the
next 25 years flowing into foundations to make new content:
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/20/1313223
What possible reason other than inertia can the stewards of Fred Rogers'
legacy give by not freeing these wonderful programs and books and music CDs
over the internet hosted for free by, say, Google (even without allowing
derivatives)? Encumbered royalties to musicians or other performers is
probably the only legitimate reason I can think of. So sad if that is true
-- it is probably a trivial amount considering the good these videos and
books could do the world, and you would think they could be bought out.
Especially considering:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07144/788654-53.stm
"Pittsburgh plans to unveil a $3 million statue of Rogers in 2008."
OK -- is this a tough choice? -- $3 million on a hunk of metal and concrete,
or $3 million so kids everywhere in the English-speaking part of the world
can see even just, say, ninety episodes (10%) of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood
with Daniel Striped Tiger and Lady Elaine Fairchild whenever they want on
Youtube? Which would be a better monument to Fred Rogers' lifework?
Why do we have to talk about moving to Mars to even think about access to
Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood being free for all kids on the planet?
The world has change with Google and Youtube, but our social institutional
decision making is falling way behind. :-(
Instead of free access, the 895 episodes on almost every issue a young child
might face are inaccessible right now except for a physical pilgrimage to
either the Museum of Broadcast Communications in NYC:
http://www.museum.tv/
or Saint Vincent College:
http://www.stvincent.edu/friendships/fred_rogers
"Before Fred Rogers died in 2003, he chose Saint Vincent College as the
place to house his priceless archives and further his pioneering influence
on children's media. ... The college is now collaborating with early
learning and children's media experts from all over the country in building
a $14 million Center at the entrance to campus which, in Fred's name, will
serve as a resource for educators, researchers and others interested in this
important topic. The Center will promote early learning, the primacy of
caring relationships between children and adults, and responsible uses of
media."
Translation of the academic-ese: "Your kids can't see Mr. Rogers'
Neighborhood for free on YouTube because we indirectly make money off the
videos by keeping them artificially scarce." :-( Perfectly acceptable by
current (low) academic ethical standards. Perfectly ethically self-dealing
in the internet age, IMHO. And professors wonder why students cheat so much
-- maybe they are just learning by a "double dipping" profit maximizing
example. :-(
"Cheating Rampant on College Campuses, Survey Reveals"
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200705/CUL20070525a.html
And it is not like some shows aren't digitized (and Google could easily help
with the rest):
http://www.stvincent.edu/news_stories/news_stories/rogers-center-begins-digitization-of-fred-rogers-archive
"One of the main priorities during the first phase of the project is to
digitally reformat the more than 900 Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood episodes
dating back to the beginning of this pioneering program in 1967. The
digitization of these materials is a collaboration between the Fred Rogers
Center and Family Communications, Inc., the production company founded by
Fred Rogers. Br. David Kelly, O.S.B., Rogers Center Archivist, said that all
of the shows are currently in broadcast format and once digitized can be
easily stored as streaming video for potential electronic access. ... The
physical materials of the Fred Rogers Archive will be housed in the new
Rogers Center facilities currently under construction at Saint Vincent
College and intended for completion in Spring 2008, when an initial set of
materials will become accessible electronically. Some of the materials will
be publicly accessible. Electronic access to selected content will be
determined according to the intended uses of the materials."
They also say: “We are completing this project the way we think Fred would
want it. Through electronic access, we want to create a community of
learners who will read the same things, share insights and create a new
collection of materials,” Br. David concluded."
But if they were *serious* about making them accessible electronically, why
wait so long? Why say ""Electronic access to selected content will be
determined according to the intended uses of the materials"? Clearly even
the handful of DVDs would be better than nothing. And the Museum of
Broadcast Communications must certainly have a lot. Spring 2008 is here and
almost gone. All I can say in their defense is maybe they are slow and maybe
there are encumberments. I've sure missed a lot of target dates myself. But
then why not say that and see if people can help? There is a fundamental
scarcity-economy hubris here IMHO -- even if *unconscious*. They are in
complete control of the materials that *our* tax dollars helped fund. :-(
And this story is repeated over, and over, video, books, music, pamphlets,
web sites, programs, seeds, patents, and more. All stuff we as taxpayers
helped fund and which is kept from us to use as we please (and even, in some
cases, remix). OK, let's say freeing Mr. Rogers Neighborhood as a
potentially encumbered work is a lost cause. But the same processes continue
even now in creating new works. See:
"The Kept University"
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm
"Commercially sponsored research is putting at risk the paramount value of
higher education -- disinterested inquiry. Even more alarming, the authors
argue, universities themselves are behaving more and more like for-profit
companies"
Are all these works going to be inaccessible on Mars too? Will future
OpenVirgle residents never be able to see Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood?
Or in the end, will the universities and other non-profits really walk their
talk? I hope so. I'll keep waiting for the first (legal) streaming Mr.
Rogers Neighborhood. Spring is not quite over yet. I'll be very happy to be
proven completely 100% wrong, and people to point out how crotchety and out
of the loop I have become. :-) And to be clear I doubt any of the people
involved are "evil". As Fred Rogers said, "No one is good all the time. No
one is bad all the time. We all don't do the things we should do all the
time." What I see is more like well meaning people trapped is a collective
mythology of scarcity, trapped in a bubble of scarcity between the native
cultures of pre-scarcity where money was not needed:
http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm
and the future world of post scarcity where money is an obsolete sign of
poverty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture
And it may take a generation or more to get past that. I'm sure they are
doing their best; it can be hard to change old habits and let go of old
dogmas -- even in the face of exponentially accelerating technological
change. I know it has been and still is hard for me. But as Mr. Rogers' says:
http://pbskids.org/rogers/songlist/song6.html
"""
You're growing, you're growing,
You're growing in and out.
You're growing, you're growing,
You're growing all about.
"""
And that remains true even for "grown ups".
Anyway, if any philanthropist (cough, Google) is looking for a worthy
project to help make the world a better place *and* also create a video
library for (someday) kids on Mars, helping free Mr. Rogers Neighborhood for
everyone on the planet (including in translation) seems like a good choice
to me. And a great goodwill generator to offset the potential badwill of
Knol. :-) Again: "No one is good all the time. No one is bad all the time.
We all don't do the things we should do all the time."
Why not make the most of the dedicated lifework of Fred Rogers in building a
better world on Earth and on Mars? :-)
So, as with Google Scholar, Youtube, through no fault of Google, also reeks
of evil, but the non-obvious evil of *not* showing me stuff I paid for. :-)
To be clear, none of this is meant to undermine the long-term funding of
work of either Family Communications or The Fred Rogers Center for Early
Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College. :-) I personally
feel they *both* deserve a hefty share of the $55 trillion expected to flow
into foundations over the next 25 years:
"Is Open Source the Answer To Giving?"
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/20/1313223
based on their past performance. I just use them as a flagship example of
why subsidy publishing creating artificial scarcity by using public tax
dollars is an outdated concept in the internet age IMHO, and why it should
not take going to Mars to fix at least that.
Remembering, of course, that no one is perfect, even Fred Rogers:
"Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled"
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118358476840657463.html
"Mr. Rogers spent years telling little creeps that he liked them just the
way they were. He should have been telling them there was a lot of room for
improvement. ... Nice as he was, and as good as his intentions may have
been, he did a disservice." :-)
So, maybe the content might benefit from some "derivative work" updating
eventually, although a drive for perfection should not stop his lifework
being available as-is IMHO. There is plenty of other ways a "rotten kid" :-)
can learn those basic life-lessons. even with Fred Rogers as a supportive
"virtual" grandfather figure. :-)
--Paul Fernhout