YouTube's run-in with C-SPAN over footage of Stephen Colbert's White House Correspondent's Dinner routine made the NYT this morning, and the cable network's push to preserve its IP rights to better promote a DVD of the event has at least one author shaking his head. You see, C-SPAN offers up quite a number of DVDs featuring writers who have appeared on Book TV—and as one author told me this morning, they never even asked him if it would be okay to film his reading, let alone broadcast it and then offer it up for sale. As it happens, I can back him up on that, since I was on Book TV once and it's true: I never signed a form, so other than not going home when I saw the cameras, I never gave formal permission to be taped (unless they made that "we're taping this event" speech, which I honestly don't recall hearing), wasn't paid for my appearance, and never saw any money from the DVD—although, in the interest of full disclosure, I readily admit that I received a free disc for my records in exchange for linking to Book TV on Beatrice. There's an interesting debate to be had, perhaps, over whether these readings are "news" or "performances," though I'd hate to be the one who makes the test case and has thousands of Brian Lamb fans spit on me whenever I tried to cross the street.

UPDATE: C-SPAN has made a statement regarding its decisions: "It is important for online video providers to understand that C-SPAN-produced programming is protected by copyright in the same way that the video of any other news network is protected. Our goal in enforcing our copyright has been and continues to be to ensure that C-SPAN's reputation for unbiased coverage of the political process is maintained." They also claim that the DVD sales are "not a major revenue source for our non-profit network," so if any of you writers were thinking of suing for your share of that lucrative home video market, why not distract yourself by muggling little old ladies, you big meanies?