If that were the case then the BBC would not be unfairly distorting competition, undercutting the image libraries and causing people to lose their jobs, since the media and any other commercial users would still have to pay to use the images, and it would in fact add huge public value because all licence-fee payers would have access to this fantastic archive to view, share, remix, etc. as long as they don’t make money out of it. (Of course in reality it would be anyone in the world; the Internet is global and geographical restrictions like those in the Creative Archive Licence were never really going to work in practice.)

“The BBC … needs roles, goals and values coupled to a strong mission statement which gives it a clear idea of what “success” means for it.”

Since reading your comment, I’ve been wondering how that happens.

The Guardian has the Scott Trust (more properly now ‘The Scott Trust Limited’) which has a clear remit for the Guardian (which I didn’t know until Mike Bracken pointed it out at the Open Platform announcement yesterday)…

The international audience delivered by Guardian.co.uk has brought a new goal within reach: for the Guardian to become the world’s leading liberal voice.

The BBC, of course, has the BBC Trust. Based on its purpose and its remits, would you say that the Trust is the way the BBC gets things like its goals, values and mission statement(s)?

“Take the ‘Its public data in the BBC, so give us the keys to the kingdom’ lobby. True it is public data – but then, if you build a business that profits from it, isn’t much of that wealth gained also the public’s? In other words, shouldn’t the public have a large stake in any company that uses public assets for private gain? Otherwise its just tantamount to scraping the commons for personal gain, surely”

The question is how you ensure that releasing what the BBC has (to borrow Tony’s phrase) “in its archives” is used to add *public* value rather than *private* value.

Case in point. Who would benefit most from the BBC freely-licensing its archives of images? The answer – big business, including the media, who would realise an immediate cost-saving on buying and using images. Who would lose out? Image libraries, which would lose revenue – and in the current economic climate, that means shedding jobs.

So, you can argue, more “public value” is created by keeping that treasure trove securely under lock and key than by releasing it.

This, unfortunately, is where Steve’s argument that the BBC is “a machine for the production of public value” falls down. There is no coherent notion of what “public value” is. Is it measured by economic impact? Is it measured by cultural impact? Or what?

And almost all of the problems the BBC faces can actually be ascribed to the fact that there is no agreed measurement criteria for its success or failure. If its audience gets too high in any sector, it gets slammed for stifling the commercial sector. If it produces stuff which is too niche, it’s not “offering value” (whatever that means).

The BBC, in management speak, needs roles, goals and values coupled to a strong mission statement which gives it a clear idea of what “success” means for it. I’m afraid that nebulous statements about offering public value won’t cut it, until we all agree what “public value” means.