Slashdot Mirror
BBC Trust Will Hear iPlayer Openness Complaints
AnotherDaveB writes with a Register story reporting that the BBC Trust has asked to meet with open source advocates to discuss their complaints over the corporation's Windows-only on-demand broadband TV service, iPlayer. The development came less than 48 hours after a meeting between the Open Source Consortium and regulators at Ofcom on Tuesday. Officials agreed to press the Trust, the BBC's governing body, to meet the OSC. The consortium received an invitation on Wednesday afternoon.
My girlfriend is constantly making these and I've noticed that the best way to adress them is to accuse her of using windows.
This revolution will not be televised on my Linux computers. But maybe the effects will be.
what options do they have?
They don't know, because it appears they didn't even bother to try and find out before rushing into a deal with Microsoft that ties them into Windows Media.
Isn't RealPlayer on almost all major OSes? Or don't they have a version of DRM that works on across platforms?
A forced meeting is going to produce no results. All it shows is the BBC unwillingness to solve the issues.
The only reason they're meeting is so that if this does go to the court they can claim they "tried to resolve the issues".
...that the BBC download system won't work on Macs given that every BBC technical bod I know (and I know quite a few through my sister and her husband who both work in post-production there) is a complete Mac obsessive.
I seem to remember that sun was working on an opensource DRM based on Java called Dream
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Is anyone laboring under the impression that e-petitions do anything?
I think it is hard to make a case that the standard paper petitions are effective, but it at least shows that the organizer is dedicated to the cause, and probably some respectable percentage of the signatories at least agree a little.
With an e-petition, the organizer spends what, all of 15 minutes working on a petition, and who are the signatories? Are they even citizens, are they the same guy 30,000 times?
I will never sign an e-petition. I may even start an e-petition to make my case to all those e-petition zealots that me, and probably a few dozen other people wont' stand for more e-petitions. We'll go so far as to enter our email addresses on a web form to show our solidarity. But then again it might just be too much work.
Finally, why in the world would I trust the organizer of an e-petition with any information about my self? Seems like a great way to harvest spammable information. If I don't have to enter any information, how do you know I'm a real person?
Well gee, seeing that the material is publicly available, and already paid for ( by a compulsory TV license ) and also already available in digital form without DRM ( through the terrestrial digital broadcast ) why exactly do they have to use DRM to begin with? I only see a few reasons:
a)"Content providers" refuse to license their shows if they don't
b)They have partnered with MS and MS refuse to develop a system that doesn't.
c)Some muppet up in management still believes it can work.
d)All of the above
None of those are valid reasons why a publicly funded company should help strengthen a monopoly that has repeatedly been convicted under anti-trust legislation. Basically what it boils down to is drop the DRM or drop the public funding. As long as the material is paid for by the public it should be available to the public.
It's not paranoia, it's commercial sensitivity.
The BBC does not work in isolation. It works in partnership with other broadcasters around the world. And in making its content freely available to licence payers in the UK it has to make sure that it doesn't abuse the rights of its partners by giving away content to those outside the UK, where the rights may be shared with or even wholely owned by those partners.
Take two productions as examples.
The newest Doctor Who stories are co-developments with CBC, a Canadian broadcaster. I imagine that the BBC owns the broadcast rights in the UK, the CBC owns the broadcast rights in Canada and the broadcast rights elsewhere have been split or sold under an agreed formula.
To make Doctor Who freely available to everybody everywhere would be to the detriment of not only the CBC but to those third parties who buy the broadcast rights everywhere else.
Similarly, with Band of Brothers, which was a co-production with HBO, the BBC probably owns the UK rights, HBO the US ones and the rights elsewhere split, etc.
To expect the BBC to release all its content to everyone would be unrealistic, not least of all because securing the worldwide internet rights for all of the productions concerned would be impossible, strategically as well as commercially.
Faced with that reality, what choice does the BBC have if its going to make this content avaiable online in Britain and Britain only other than some from of rights management?
I'm all for the BBC coming up with a cross-platform solution but I don't think it's fair to hit it with the unfair charge of using DRM for DRM's sake when it's bending over backwards to make more content available to their customers (licence payers), on it's own initiative, without stepping on anybody else's toes in the process.
They're trying to be good guys here. Why blast them with both barrels over pipe dreams?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Because the compulsory TV license covers UK viewers, and we're talking about Internet distribution now?
Real Networks warned open source community about future potential problem with DRM, it got covered on Slashdot and they got flamed instead.
:)
Yes, they have a working DRM solution for almost everything you can imagine. Millions of Verizon etc. phones are using their software already to play purchased music. Of course, this happens because the WOKE UP and saw the power of open source, created Helix community offering their millions dollars worth patents for free to GPL projects.
I also heard BBC other Windows Media DRM vendor is not so happy with feedback they get from the users. Azureus'es "Media center" like version (Vuze, 3.x) already sells BBC content in Wmedia DRM. Imagine a Java 5/6 application which works exactly same on 3-4 completely different operating systems is "prisoned" to Windows DRM solution to make money. Would you be happy?
There the BBC Content: http://www.vuze.com/channel/bbc
Vuze runs on anything with modern Java but can't "sell"/"rent" legal content because of the format (Wmedia DRM) is hostile to any OS other than Windows. Now they are attempting to create same thing.
There is a waiting scandal there for Professional IT media. If any left...
For those not aware of how British politics works: Blair (and now Brown's) government both follow what is known as the 'tabloid agenda', the most read tabloid in the world is 'The Sun' this is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Heads of the Labour government regularly meet with Rupert Murdoch, in fact Murdoch was known as the hidden member of Tony Blair's government. Don't think Brown is any better though: an interview (sadly I think that's been taken off-air so you'll have to trust me) with the editor of The Sun revealed that Rupert Murdoch often used to joke about having to visit both Number 10 and Number 11 whenever he was in the UK.
As the BBC is competition to Murdoch he would like to see it shutdown. This is natural. Unfortunately for him the BBC is not controlled by the government, but the BBC Trust is. So when the government comes out with weird statements like:
It's pretty obvious to me who's behind the complaints. The people--whom the government are supposed to serve--just want the BBC to be the best it can be, and if private media can't keep up? Then it shouldn't be in business! Particularly when considering how these words are touting 'public interest' then enforcing the use of DRM? Public interest my arse. In the words of Hugo Swire (shadow culture secetary):
So as usual, it's all big company interests. I somehow doubt that the BBC Trust will listen to the Open Source Consortium. Not that I think they shouldn't try, however it's unlikely they'll be able to remove their heads from Rupert Murdoch's arsehole long enough to listen. :)
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
Here's an idea that could make them them money and make us happier:
Why don't they use a flash based video player like NBC, ABC, etc.
If they detect that you are from the UK they show you the videos WITHOUT ADs. If you are outside the UK they show you the videos WITH ADs based on your country of origin.
Everyone gets to watch their content and they makes more money though AD revenue. A win-win in my book.
They need to DRM and limit to the UK because of syndication. While most of their shows are public broadcast in the UK they license them to other TV stations that release on a different schedule. These other channels would not want to pay the same amount if the shows were available on the internet for free before they showed them on their channels.
The same thing happens with DVD's of BBC shows. The season may be long over in the UK some times years over but the DVDs won't release until after the american syndication has aired.
This signature would be better if I was creative.