The BBC has unleashed the first installment of its (mostly) remixable TV archive. Containing about 100 clips, each a few minutes long, it mostly seems to be innocuous material such as animals and landscapes. Of course, many interesting mixes contain image of people but that seems likely to run afoul of the archive's Creative Archive Licence, which claims that the material must not be use to defame anyone. Interestingly, the CAL appears to be viral, in that anything created with its material must itself be licensed under identical terms.

The material is being made available to BBC Radio 1 listeners with an encouragement to create a 3-minute VJ mix. Clearly this pilot is targeting the most obvious audience. It will be interesting to see where this grows as the library of licensed clips grows and people expand the ways in which they're used. For example, could I use this material as background for a show I was DJing, if I was going to get paid for the DJ gig anyway and didn't get anything more for having the video acompaniment?