C-SPAN last week announced a change of usage policy designed to expand citizen access to its online video of federal government activities, such as congressional hearings, agency briefings and White House events.

The network introduced a liberalized copyright policy for current, future and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency that will allow non-commercial copying, sharing and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with proper attribution. Such content, C-SPAN said, equals about half of all programming offered on the network.

In addition, C-SPAN also announced plans to significantly build out its capitolhearings.org Web site as a one-stop resource for Congressionally produced webcasts of House and Senate committee and subcommittee hearings.

Examples of events included under C-SPAN's new expanded policy include all Congressional hearings and press briefings, federal agency hearings and presidential events at the White House.

C-SPAN's copyright policy will not change for the network's studio productions, all non-federal events, campaign and political event coverage, and the network's feature programming, such as Book TV and original history series.