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BBC Threatened Over iPlayer Format
greengrass sends us to coverage in The Register of the Open Source Consortium's threatened anti-trust challenge against the BBC over its use of Windows Media format in its on-demand service, iPlayer. From the article: "The OSC will raise a formal complaint with UK broadcast and telecoms watchdog Ofcom next week, and has vowed to take its accusations to the European Competition Commission if domestic regulators do not act. The OSC compared the situation to the European Commission's prosecution of Microsoft over its bundling of Windows Media Player with Windows."
It seems that the Beeb is concerned about DRM -- it's easy to validate this argument as a content provider if it is not a free service.
What choices are out there if the main concern is vendor lock-in? What "open" DRM alternatives exist?
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The problem is that I pay for the content via my TV licence, and I don't really like the idea of paying for a delivery method that is inaccessible to me.
(ahem posted from IE6 in windows - at work, honest!)
SURELY NOT!!!!!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I see, and do you happen to be an elected government that pays for running that Website by collecting tax dollars from the people (at gunpoint if need be)? I didn't think so.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The OS landscape changing as it is now (not necessarily as fast as we'd like it), this move is valid. Personally I don't like to use Microsoft products, no exception to Windows Media Player on Mac (a bit of a bitch to find and install the proper CODECs).
I like to at least have a choice of media formats available...
Blogged about the BBC's choice of DRM a while back, Could the BBC lose respect over DRM?
ilovegeorgebush
They should just switch to Real Player, then everyone will be equally (un)happy.
Nope, the BBC is *not* a government agency (At least not officially). It's supported by a complex system of licence fees and laws from the government, but it is not in itself a government/public agency.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Oddly named bittrollent asks:
Is this really your idea of freedom?
I'm not sure what the question means, but a government agency publishing things in a format that's owned by one company is pushing that company's fortune at the expense of all others. Why should governments cede control of their media and who watches it to a private company, especially a foreign one? People who pay their taxes deserve to be able to watch the results without having to pay the M$ tax.
If there's a problem with software patents involved here, the problem should be taken care of directly. Software patents lead to nonsense like this and should be abolished. There's no justifying the social cost of business method patents, which is what software patents ultimately are.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
They're going to bring a Mac client as well, which means that *everyone* will be able to watch TV. That's how they report the story.
Except they are not a company; they are a corporation paid for by government funding raised by charging all citizens for their TV license. The argument being stated here is that if I pay the license fee, surely I have a right to be able to watch their content without having to install Windows on my computer. I assume that you pay taxes and license fees in your country, wouldn't you complain if you were prevented from getting any benefit from the money raised?
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
Did you complain when BBC3 and radio 6 were transmitted in a format that made it impossible to receive with standard equipment?
The BBC is a multi format platform. They are not required to deliver all content in a form every single TV owning person can receive. Otherwise everything from RSS feeds, to DAB, to enhanced podcasts to on demand digital weather forcasts are suddenly illegal.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
While you are correct AFAIK, the BBC is effectively a government agency because if you own a device capable of receiving a terrestrial broadcast you are required to pay them the licensing fee or you will see them in court.
State-sponsored monopolies, especially mandatory ones, should be subject to the same sort of restrictions and reasoning as government itself.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Governments, funded by the PUBLIC should put their stuff in PUBLIC format.
and when software patents get in the way, the PUBLIC should demand that law serve the PUBLIC interest. Software patents are bogus and they are the only reason there's a format problem in the first place.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Any reason why they can't support multiple formats? How about Flash? Not that Flash is the best solution, long-term, but it does work natively across more platforms than either quicktime or windows media and it is installed on most web browsers.
What would be stupid is to continue supporting the microsoft monopoly and helping them expand it onto the Internet. This is about the long-term quality of computing, something microsoft is a very real threat to.
The Farewell Tour II
Now on the flip side, these are private enterprises and can do pretty much whatever the hell they want in terms of formats, which usually means finding a way to reach the largest audience possible while still protecting the content. But it seems to me that as conventional TV dies, from DVR's and competition from cable/sat channels, they are trying to expand viewer ship and trying to find what works online. I'm not sure anyone's got it quite figured out yet, but are trying.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
The difference is that broadcast TV signal is useable by any TV regardless of the brand. Requiring a Microsoft player on a standard run-of-the-mill PC as opposed to a player-agnostic format isn't the same as requiring new equipment for new functionality.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Then use some other MPEG-4 player.
Encryption usually works on cryptographically sound principles, like not including the key with the ciphertext. Obsfucation is the only reason DRM is at all effective, and that disappears with open source.
If their goal is prevent people from seeing the content, then PGP/GPG would be a great plan. But their goal is to limit what people who are authorized to see the content can do with it on their own equipment, and that goal is not attainable in any robust system, open or otherwise.
So yes, open vs. closed may have nothing to do with robustness. But logically sound vs. fallacious seems like a more important factor in selecting a robust design.
The thing is a prime example of bad bad technology. I'm fortunate enough to be a trial user. Only, I've never actually used it. I can't. I've tried and tried but it just doesn't work.
.exe. Firing up the .exe I had to reregister. Multiple times. And got no further. Some days later, an apology email from the BBC explaining that they'd sent the wrong login details.
It started badly - it refuses to accept registrations via firefox (no technology issue - just a browser check which barfs). Once I switched to IE, it let me go further - registration followed by the download of a
So I tried again, and after much mucking about, finally got in. The UI is very very bad - but I navigated to my favourite programme, which claimed it had episodes available - but once clicked stated none. So I went for my second favourite programme - same again. And so on.
So - two weeks after first receiving an invitation to give up; after switching browsers, downloading software, installing it, changing my media settings, registering multiple times, and clicking through a clunky interface multiple times, all to no avail, I gave up.
If the bbc were working in an open way - maybe, just maybe, they'd have access to a wider range of talents - or perhaps competing suppliers and technology platforms - and have delivered a usable product. As it is, we're all subject to two monopolies, who'll slowly and cumbersomely work towards a semi-acceptable solution at great cost. And in doing so, the BBC will help Microsoft maintain its hegemony - remember - it wouldn't let us use Firefox just to register and download the software.... defend that.
However much I'd love the beeb to be using a opensource version of the iPlayer, they have bigger fish to fry right now than this. The BBC Trust process has meant that the iPlayer is incredibly late, considering its been in planning for several years. More legal trouble could mean the Player never leaves beta at all - leaving the BBC even more irrelevant. In addition, each move the Beeb makes is analysed and scrutinised by a jealous commercial opposition who see new markets which the BBC has picked up and feel threatened by a well-funded, well liked public broadcasting upping the benchmark. It never used to be a problem but it has already seen the death of BBC Jam - the online schools service, leaving their education department in limbo - and has meant that iPlayer is not the product that was originally intended. The ability to download a series has been ripped out, for example.
Now the open source movement wants to harass them as well? This needs to stop. In time the BBC will realise that the Kontiki platform is poor, sucks away bandwidth without asking and renders all their material unportable. They can do that on their own terms with consultation from their users - they do not need more legal trouble which will take up time and leave the BBC even more vulnerable. The public corporation is not the for-profit corporation's bitch.
Freeview is broadcast using DVB-T, an international standard. You can get receivers from a number of different companies from about £30 up (or hard disk based recorders for a bit more), it's built into many high-end TVs, and there are several different available receivers to watch and record it on a PC. Sure, you can't watch it on a normal TV without extra hardware, but it's cheap, probably due to having actual competition.
.m4a files of the stuff already available as MP3 but with added chapter markings and images. I don't see any technical reason why other players couldn't convert them to a format they support, though I'm not sure how many actually have the correct features...
The iPlayer, on the other hand, requires you to watch the programs on one piece of software running on one operating system produced and sold (and not cheaply) by a single company. Sure, it's currently, the most common operating system, but the two things are not comparable.
I'm not sure what the "enhanced podcasts" are. I think they're
The BBC already broadcasts their programming, in MPEG-2 at more or less DVD quality, unencrypted, over the public airwaves, all over the UK - in the form of digital terrestrial television. This is their primary reason for existence. There is no sight or sign of DRM anywhere near it. It is utterly trivial to record this with a computer and DVB capture card, hardware which is cheaply and widely available. Most popular BBC programmes are already recorded in this fashion and posted on thepiratebay.org within 12 hours.
This is the same content that they are now releasing onto the internet. It is quite obvious that if they didn't need DRM to broadcast it over radio in the first place, they don't need DRM to broadcast exactly the same stuff again over IP. It is further obvious that the simplest thing for them to do would be to use exactly the same codec that they are already using. There is no apparent reason why they should suddenly propose a far more limited and ineffective system just because the carrier system is IP rather than radio.
It is pretty obvious that Microsoft is involved in this one somewhere, and that's almost certainly illegal.
No amount of DRM on the IP version is going to have any effect at all on the material available on TPB, because all the content is already on the net and will continue to be posted there from the digital terrestrial broadcasts (no proposals are currently being made to post any of the BBC's considerable archive of material on the net, only some of the things which are currently being broadcast). The quality is better in the terrestrial broadcasts than in the iplayer system anyway, so iplayer is never going to be used as a source for TPB when the far better DVB version is readily available. The entire proposal is retarded: they are seriously suggesting a service which is lower quality, less convenient, and already less popular than TPB, with DRM crippling thrown in just to make it entirely unwanted. It's a complete waste of time and money, because everybody with an interest will just keep using TPB instead.
Did you complain when BBC3 and radio 6 were transmitted in a format that made it impossible to receive with standard equipment?
DAB is an Open standard. If the BBC had declared they would be transmitting BBC 3 or Radio 6 in a Sony proprietary format from now on and everyone would have to buy a Sony receiver, hell yes I'd complain.
In the iPlayer case, the DRM system is implemented, I think, to prevent non-UK citizens (hence not funding the BBC). The content itself would be, I believe, free. I don't mind the DRM in this case. It should be, however, in an open format (just require the BBC player to play it and make it OS-free).
UK and ex-pats only though.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/iplayer/
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
It is after all, a proprietary format, wholly owned and controlled by one company, which is why Creative and MS Mp3 players can't play the content.
The "Enhanced Podcast" appears to be an MPEG-4 container with an AAC "track" and a still image "track."
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
no, it is not a government agency, not even effectively. It is funded by laws passed by the government, and that's as far as it goes. Its not sponsored by the govmt, the licence fee was defined ages ago and now they cannot change it (the next review is in 2013). It has a charter describing the reason for its existence, and the restrictions that apply to it. It is run by a Trust that is charged with maintaining its independance.
a rs_licfee06.html
Here's a good set of links: http://www.bbccharterreview.org.uk/seminars/semin
There are plenty of cases where the price is set or restricted by the government for services that are definitely private companies (eg the post, the utilities). The only difference is that the BBC bills you on expected usage and not actual usage, but that's only because they cannot meter you picking up the tv signals. Maybe things will be different in 2012 and then we'll see the licence fee (and therefore the internet downloads) change to a subscriber basis.
Does anyone know why the BBC didn't end up using Dirac for this project? It's the first I've heard of the iPlayer, but I would have thought their Dirac work would have been perfect for this.
I'd recommend reading this for a good overview of how Windows Media and QuickTime grew out of the muck.
Bluray and HD-DVD will decode VC-1 if the material is encoded with VC-1. Most disks use H.264 because it's a better codec anyway and Hollywood is very skeptical about allowing Microsoft technologies to encapsulate "their" media, so it's lightly used. Most corporations have learned that any agreement with Microsoft is treacherous territory. Given the chance, they'll devour you from the inside and spit out your bones. If you examine Microsoft's history of practically any technology which is inherently interoperable, their constant effort is to distill everything work only on Windows. That's a huge problem which is working against them big time.
Microsoft found itself in a very uncomfortable situation with VC-1. They expected everyone to beat a path to their toll gate when High Definition DVDs were being developed. That didn't happen and they were the only ones who were surprised. What actually occurred was they weren't even invited to the party, so Microsoft found itself in the position of throwing the codec at standards committees, begging for ratification and it still took several years. Microsoft wanted exclusive control over the codec and that was unacceptable to those who understood the way Microsoft would eventually hold the content owners hostage. Microsoft had to provide the source code and define the royalty structure up front - something they've never had to do. This was the first time anything from Microsoft was properly standardized.
Another detractor against using Microsoft technologies was the long history of failed efforts and broken promises from Microsoft in the media business. Look at how often Microsoft has renamed existing technologies over the years because they have always culminated in some sort of train wreck. That kind of technical stability isn't something manufacturers were looking for long term. Manufacturers also had no faith in Microsoft's ability to deliver a secure product. During that time frame, the well known inverse of "Security" was "Microsoft".
The VC-1 codec is separate from Windows Media Player, literally removed from the Microsoft wrapper and offered seperately. Windows Media Player, with the possible exception of corporations which have signed exclusive deals with Microsoft, is shriveling up rapidly in favor of the MPEG4 container and H.264 codec (pronounced "QuickTime"). Many major video portals and hardware manufacturers have started shipping Flash (H.263) or MPEG4 with more on the way. Right now, Windows Media is working along side these technologies where a few years ago it was nearly alone in the field. Eventually, Windows Media may well fall away completely. The most popular format for paid media uses the interoperable and extensible MPEG4/H.264, not Windows Media (the iTunes Store).
The Windows Media Player wrapper is the shell which embodies mechanisms to track your movements, blow advertising at you, restrict your ability to view things as well as a few useful functions. Relatively, QuickTime is the crown jewel of media with far more flexibility than Windows Media could even pretend to have.
Most of the stuff on
I'm sorry, are you from another planet? The BBC is not a business, it's a public service operating under special charter from the UK government. They don't make disposable profits, because they don't have any owners to pay them to: every penny they make is spent directly on producing more media for the British public, and they aren't allowed to spend it on anything else. As a result, they have no real profit margins, so they have the least money available. Suing them for money is a waste of time - they are not the ones with "deep pockets", they are the ones who, by law and charter, have no pockets at all.
The OSC are not asking for money, they're asking for them to stop. No money is likely to change hands as a result of this (except to the lawyers, obviously); if the OSC win, all they will get is the injunction that they ask for.
You clearly did not read the post that you were replying to. The BBC already publishes all their content DRM-free, and it's already all available on "P2P" networks. Nobody is even so much as suggesting that this should change. This is clearly not about file sharing. It's pretty obviously about Microsoft trying to generate more lock-in to their platform, and that's a breach of anti-trust laws (and the BBC's charter, they are explicitly not allowed to promote any company or product, even if it is otherwise legal for them to do so).
Besides which, there is absolutely nothing wrong with BBC-produced content being put on P2P networks. It may not even be illegal in many cases (the BBC could certainly never justify suing any British citizen for it): much of that content has already been fully paid for by UK citizens, and nobody gets paid when the BBC screens it again, in any medium (actors get paid again for repeats on a few things, but not most of the stuff the BBC has in its archives).