Letter from Society of American Archivists to members of Congress about the Smithsonian/Showtime agreement

Letter from Society of American Archivists to members of Congress about the Smithsonian/Showtime agreement (pdf)
Society of American Archivists, publication date: 28 November 2006
"Using archival material held by a public institution to generate revenue for the institution through non-exclusive commercial alliances is an accepted practice among public archival institutions. But the Smithsonian's attempt to control use and distribution of information found in its archives through an exclusive agreement is virtually unprecedented among public archives. In our opinion, it is a violation of the public trust invested by donors and tax payers in public archives. We urge the Smithsonian to revisit the agreement and to abandon those portions that limit either access to the archives or distribution of a researcher's final results."