Just announced yesterday: mySociety's House of Commons video site. Crowd-source some video timestamps today!

Why might the government seek to close the site down? After all, aren't mySociety "the biggest single catalyst for political change in this country"? (Lord Gould of Brookwood, House of Lords debate, 15/6/06)

Well, they may be, but they may have fractured, or at least bent, a copyright law or two.

You see, Parliamentary video exists under a draconian copyright license under which it "must not be hosted on a searchable website and must not be downloadable", apparently for fear of naughty citizens making humorous or satirical use of it; or indeed any use at all.

To which the mySociety guys and gals seem to have said a collective, "Well that's silly," and gone ahead and done it anyway. Good on you, people.

Seriously, do your bit for democratic transparency and go and timestamp a few videos now. It's curiously addictive.