War 2.0 Operation Cast Lead and the Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository

The Gaza War of early 2009, known as Operation Cast Lead, was a watershed moment for our digital team. While Western media outlets were largely restricted from entering the strip, Al Jazeera had a distinct advantage: we were already there. While the conflict carried on, we realized the value of our footage was too significant to keep locked behind traditional copyright. We needed a way to get this ground-level context into the hands of the global community, from documentary filmmakers to citizen journalists.

In January 2009, we officially launched the Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository (http://cc.aljazeera.com), the first of its kind for a major news organization. We built the platform on Drupal and used blip.tv to host the videos, allowing users to download and repurpose high-quality broadcast footage under a 3.0 attribution license. The goal was simple: to democratize access to the news and ensure that the human stories we captured could be shared and verified by anyone, anywhere.

This project wasn't just about sharing video; it was about shifting the role of the newsroom from a closed gatekeeper to an open resource. By releasing our "War on Gaza" coverage into the wild, we challenged the industry to rethink how media organizations interact with their audience. It was our first major step toward building a digitally native infrastructure that prioritized the free flow of information over proprietary control.