British readers: action required.

Danny O' Brien (and Guardian article):

If people give it the sort of excited support that we see online for the wider ideal of the Creative Archive, then it will happen. There are people in the BBC - high-up people - who really do understand the Net and will do this if they see it as a potentially popular idea. If people expect a smaller, weaker, Archive, and expect a more compliant, fearful BBC that thinks more about cutting a penny off the license or aping the commercial networks than it does about providing a brand new approach, the ideal will wilt on the vine, and that's exactly what they'll get.

GET WRITING AND FAXING NOW. The address: BBC, attn: Greg Dyke, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London W12 2EB. The fax: 020 7765 3000. That's the fax for the Chairman's office - please be very polite and to the point.

(Don't use email. Your target audience can't work their email.)

You should probably also send a cc: to your MP, indicating your strong support for the idea.

Urgent action and direction is required. Labour may be on the rocks, and the Conservative Party is considering shutting down the BBC website altogether if they get in.

The idea, alien to most TV execs, that the file-sharing networks can have a function beyond simple piracy. The idea, alien to most TV execs, that everything the BBC should do should be free because we have already paid for it. And the idea, alien to most TV execs, that DRM-unencumbered works are better, not worse, than copy-restricted systems. These ideas are so common online, and so alien everywhere else in the media world, that I sometimes doubt that the two worlds can be bridged. The media world cannot conceive of anyone thinking that pirates are actually customers; that free is good; that DRM is not a beautiful gift from the technogods. The online world has long since despaired of anyone understanding the opposite.

Please also circulate this appropriately.