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Anti-DRM Activists Take On the BBC
An anonymous reader writes "Activists from Binary Freedom Boston have launched a campaign calling on the BBC to release their content online without DRM or proprietary formats. You might remember the BBC asking us about this earlier and even though the public chose not to use DRM by a landslide, they still decided to use it. EMI and Amazon have already ditched DRM. How long before the BBC does?"
The BBC's broadcasts are already free, via satellite, in Europe. I do not pay a UK license fee but can watch BBC, and the other UK channels, via Sky and without the use of any Sky subscription. I do not think that the content being available to anyone else in the world is such a major issue. The material has already been funded and you pay for your internet access so no-one is losing money.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
As a license fee payer myself, I do not care if third parties have access. Good for them!
Although some people will disagree they're more the old moaning grandparent types with their "because I had to pay you do to!" speeches. These old farts need to stop complaining and realize theres a lot of us Brits outside the country wanting to watch the BBC.
This is really what the BBC has needed for a long time. It never made any sense to me that I have to pay this license every year but if I want to watch something I missed I have to buy it on DVD? Whats the point of a yearly subscription if I can't access the content I paid to get produced.
I'm not a big TV watcher anyway as I spent most my time refreshing Slashdot. What I would really like to see from the BBC is high quality video via BitTorrent. Hell they wouldn't even need to use their own tracker they could practically host the stuff for the cost of a few internet connections.
The BBC is a state protected monopoly, a relic of a bygone modernist age. The TV License is not a tax, nor are the BBC part of the state. They are a media company guaranteed a significant income by the laws of the land, for which they in turn have to meet certain criteria in their programming and the way the business is run. But they still sell DVDs at a profit, why should they not try to milk the market any way they see fit? FYI I'm not a fan of the setup. From the start the BBC was supposed to "Educate, Entertain, and Inform." This was pre-WWII mind. The world is different now, there's no shortage of transmission technology, no use for a monopoly just to keep morale up during the depression and then the blitz. I'd happily settle for "Educate" and leave the other two to commercial programmers.
Why can't we easily download NPR content in a friendly format?
It seems like their audio is WMV or RP and the download links are buried. I don't want to launch a proprietary player from my browser or otherwise, thankyourverymuch.
You should check out Zattoo. It's an internet TV service. Right now it is only available in Switzerland, however, a couple of weeks ago I signed up to be notified when it becomes available in the UK. Yesterday I got an email asking me to become one of the first in the UK to use Zattoo.
I signed up, downloaded the Linux client (LGPL) and can now watch 7 BBC channels plus France 24, TVE Internacional and TV Polonia!
No mention from Zattoo of the need for a TV license, so not sure if this is the case.
What first had me wondering about this was when I heard (a couple of years back I think) that BBC would stop some international broadcasts it was doing, apparantly because it would save them money to do so. It just seems so very short-sighted.
sigs are hazardous to your health
That's because they have no way of changing that without denying license payers in the UK access to the content for free.
That isn't true. Until about two years ago they encrypted their broadcast and allowed UK residents to view it for free by making available smartcards to them.
However, they did so in association with the commercial TV companies (sharing their card), and apparently that deal was so expensive to them that they decided to end it.
But that does not mean there is "no way". E.g. here in the Netherlands the same (public broadcaster encrypting, cards available without subscription fee) is still being done. We have the same problem, though: the company doing the sat encryption is increasing their service fees all the time.
I think it would be far more valuable to Britain to venture out looking for cultural influence from outside. Don't get me wrong I am not attacking Britain, but we are long past the days of the British Empire and there is too much naval gazing and self congratulation in nations throughout the world without more pushing of their own views. Countries would have more benefit if they looked beyond themselves for their own growth.
Put it this way - I'm Irish (and that is not the motivation for my post
We have benefitted from this so on that point I agree - but don't you think it is a much better position to be in to pick and choose outside influence? Is it better than mandating into your national broadcaster that they should be pushing "the British way/view" as you put it?
That sounds more like wartime propaganda to me, and not just a little arrogant. 59 million people are only a very small slice of six billion.
I never get used to these constant resurrections
Then they suddenly became very friendly with Microsoft (not sure if it was connected with the change of management after Blair kicked the existing one out by saying bad things about Iraq or whether Bill came by with a sack of cash) - they developed iPlayer which was based on Windows Media Player, so now Linux and even Mac users were left out in the cold. In effect the BBC started discriminating against people unwilling or unable to pay the Microsoft Tax.
The BBC have lately promised to also make the content available on MacOS X eventually, but no dates have been fixed. In the end for it to work on the Mac they will have to offer their content either in an open DRM-free format or use Apples DRM. If they stick with the DRM route it will mean Linux and other OS users will be out of luck. FWIW (not a lot probably) here's a petition to make iPlayer cross platform (with a name like iSomething you'd expect it to work on a mac!).
The problem is a simple one. In the UK, in order to have the legal right to watch any television, including non-BBC television, you are obliged to subscribe to the BBC. It is compulsory, its a criminal offense not to.
It is as if, for you guys in the US, in order for you to be allowed to read any newspaper, you were legally obliged to buy a subscription to the NY Times, whether you wanted to read it or did read it or not. It is as if you are legally obliged to buy a copy of Windows in order to own a computer and run Linux or MacOS, whether you install and use it or not. Whether you even can install and use it or not. You buy computer, Mac or barebones. Fine, pay fee to MS.
Now, the BBC has no corresponding obligations back to you. And there is no way you can say, no I would like to choose an alternative supplier of TV. You cannot, for instance, say that, since the BBC does not support your chosen OS, but Sky does, you are going to subscribe to Sky instead. No, you subscribe to Sky AS WELL.
Whether the BBC does DRM is neither here nor there - its no more objectionable, nor less so, than any other company doing DRM.
What is appalling, and a total denial of human rights, is that it forces people to subscribe, whether they want or can access its content or not, so they can get to different content they do want and can access.
Now, in reply to this point, we ordinarily get people saying that the BBC is excellent. Ie they like it. They can receive its content. They want to subscribe. Its just irrelevant to the human rights issue. I should have the right to watch TV without paying for the BBC if I do not want to watch it.
Tell me again why everyone else has to be compelled to subscribe?