We request that all UK television listings should be made freely available under similar terms to the GNU General Public License or Creative Commons License.





By releasing television schedule details into the public domain many web sites will be able to integrate this information into their content, creating a tighter convergence between the web and television which will benefit advertisers, broadcasters, webmasters and importantly, the viewing/surfing/consuming public.





Currently anyone publishing TV listings in the UK is required by law under the 1990 Broadcasting Act to pay a royalty to the relevant broadcasters. BDS collects this royalty for the broadcasters (BBC, ITVA and Channel 4). More information regarding BDS can be found here, http://www.bds.tv/





For more information regarding the GNU GPL please read this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gpl


For more information regarding the Creative Commons please see, http://creativecommons.org/





To read the GPL please see, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html


The creative commons liscense can be read here, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/legalcode