The scheme embraces the Creative Commons licensing model, which is based on the notion that some people may not want to exercise all of the intellectual property rights the law affords them.
Its aim is to encourage creativity and innovation by forging a middle-ground between "All rights reserved" and anarchy. It describes its approach as "Some rights reserved."
The new Licence has been launched following a commitment in the BBC's Building Public Value document, in which it pledged to "help establish a common resource which will extend the public's access while protecting the commercial rights of intellectual property owners."
The Licence therefore permits the non-commercial use of material contained in the Archive but subject to rules that ensure that, in summary:
The hope is that pilot download schemes will help fuel creative activity across Britain as people utilise the footage in personal projects, classroom presentations and their own artistic creations.
In the long term the aim is that some of those creations can be uploaded back on to the web site from where the content was obtained, to be shared with others across the internet.
A web site, creativearchive.bbc.co.uk, has also been launched. This will announce news of material as it becomes available from all the partners in the scheme, and provide relevant links to material on their sites.
Each of the partners in the Creative Archive Licence Group will launch pilot download schemes later in the year.
The BBC will initially be making footage from natural history and factual programmes available from later this summer, while Channel 4 has promised to deliver a selection of content.
The British Film Institute will be releasing silent comedy, early literary adaptations, newsreel footage and archive footage of British cities in the early 20th century, while the Open University will make available video and audio teaching material from a range of genres including geography, science and history, as well as footage from the popular OU and BBC series Rough Science.
In addition, Teachers' TV - which already offers downloads of its programmes - will be releasing its content under the Creative Archive Licence for a pilot period.
"The Creative Archive Licence provides a unique solution to one of the key challenges of rights in the digital age, allowing us to increase the public value of our archives by giving people the chance to use video and audio material for their own non-commercial purposes," said Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC.
"All four partners in the Creative Archive Licence Group feel this is a fantastic opportunity for other broadcasters and rights holders, and we would urge them to join us," he added.
