Slashdot Mirror
BBC Wants DRM On HD Broadcasts
NickFortune writes "The EFF's Danny O'Brien has pointed out that the BBC has asked a UK regulator for permission to add DRM to their high-definition broadcasts. Apparently, this is at the behest of content providers. 'BBC is proposing to encode the TV listings metadata that accompanies all digital TV channels with a simple compression algorithm. The parameters to this algorithm would be kept secret by the BBC: it would ask manufacturers to sign a private agreement in order to receive a copy. This license would require the implementation of pervasive DRM in the equipment they build.' Ofcom, the regulatory body in question, has detailed the proposal asked for comments, but the window closes today."
a simple compression algorithm. The parameters to this algorithm would be kept secret by the BBC
My GOD! Hackers will *NEVER* figure this one out!
The BBC produces some great programming. Mostly their news, but sometimes other stuff is not that bad. That comes at a cost, though: hefty fine on the purchase of any new TV set. This extra tax lets the government keep on producing great news and mediocre telly (that's what they call TV in England) shows.
So if they now want to force an upgrade to support this new DRM system, it makes sense that the taxpayers should foot the bill. After all, creating telly programs that is of high quality and value is something that everyone should support. So calling all Brits! Go do the patriotic thing and buy a new TV set today.
The people who pay the BBC certainly don't want this, and it certainly doesn't add anything of value. Stop this now, BBC. Is it silly season with legislation all of a sudden?
Pointless! It would be hacked the first week its released!
Who is this going to thwart? People recording and burning discs and the ones that would have easy access to the workarounds when they inevitably hit the market.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
FUCK DRM
There is no mathematical proof of DRM or Randomness, yet.
First of all, that's the matter.
A definition of randomness is a definion of a humanity.
A definiion of DRM is a definition of mathematical legal.
Evil or Stupid can't contribute such works.
Abraham TaddyHatty
BBC uses a simple huffman compression to reduce the volume of the EPG data. By that, they violate the DVB standard and thus are contemplating whether they should ask for licensing fee and treat it as a proprietary extension to the standard, or whether they should publish all details and ask for it to be integrated in the DVB standard.
Just from the summary, this sounds like the BBC are proposing a tiny, insignicant technical change to their metadata broadcast and presenting to rightsholders as a complicated and cast-iron DRM solution. Of course it's nothing of the sort, will probably never get implemented, and if it were, sounds like it would be trivial to work around (if only by getting your listings data from an external source, of which there are several!) So I think this is just singing a song the rightsholders want to hear; I'm pretty certain nobody technical at the BBC gives a hoot about implementing DRM, and would see it as an unwelcome obstacle to doing their job.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Obviously this doesn't apply to third party shows they buy in, but for their own stuff, absolutely no protection at all, thanks.
not the working man.
This is the "labor" government controlled BBC ? right?
Modern "liberal" political parties may rely on the workers and the poor for votes but make no mistake ... they serve the rich college boys that they are.
But doesn't the UK taxpayer (or at least TV watcher) PAY already to see these programs? To make matters worse, don't they HAVE to pay for it even if they don't plan to watch the BBC but only non-BBC TV programs?
How greedy can a public broadcasting company be?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
omg wtf bbq?! imho ttyl! what is this fox news? i thought only internet cats had this problem.
Good people go to bed earlier.
And I'm completely sure that all the legitimate home watchers will have no problem with their existing HD digital TVs requiring a decoder, and it'll do so much good cause you can just put your freaking DVR in after the decoder right?
Or will this force the Brits to have to shell out for a new TV?
Yea, solid idea. The DMCA thinks this is a bit too much...
First the BBC expects me to put up with rubbish SD quality digital television called "Freeview", analogue TV picture and audio is being deliberately degraded to make Freeview look good before the analogue switch off. Then as soon as a few* people** watch the "test" transmission from satellite of some BBC content in HD, they want to cripple it.
Go f-off BBC, like others, I pay a huge amount in a compulsory BBC tax every year for a progressively worse service and worse programming content. Freeview (digital tv) being pushed by the BBC is rubbish, DAB (digital radio) also being pushed by the BBC is also rubbish, now you want to turn HD into cr@p.
BTW, we don't want the HD channel wasted with hundreds of hours of pointless Olympics in 2012, shove that cr@p on your Freeview instead.
* Seriously, there can't be many with HD satellite in the UK....
** I got my Linux box to work with watching satellite HD. Ironically Windows is very problematic with HD and numerous flakey video watching / recording applications (even the paid stuff).
Take Nobody's Word For It.
First I am a little surprised that the British TV market is big enough, TV manufacturers would be interested in dealing with the code, regulatory requirements, and litigation risks to failure, of a single network's DRM request, just to sell TVs in that market. Though now that every TV basically contains a computer, rather than custom silicon, perhaps the code requirements are minor.
Second, is BBC the only supplier of TV programming in the British market (aside from satellite)? If there are other minor networks, that want to specify their own DRM or just don't want to participate, I'd think the TV manufacturers would be apoplectic.
The BBC's content is our content. Give it to us unmolested please. It's not like people are not going to let the BBC show their series unless there is DRM there.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Given the Beebs previous actions with the iplayer, I am going to believe for now this is only because the content providers have requested it. The BBC does sometimes show imported shows like The Wire, Heroes, etc. The makers of these shows are probably reluctant to let the BBC broadcast them in HD without any sort of copy protection*. This is the same problem that made them use DRM on the iplayer, first windows only and now the adobe stuff. (They had the cross platform air application out the same day adobe released air, and even published a news story on their website talking about how some people had broken the windows DRM they were using and what the program was called hint hint nudge nudge.)
*because then us Brits might put them on bittorrent, instead of downloading the American ones that are released months/years earlier. The only time I ever saw a show from here first was some of the last Stargate SG1, because Sky (a UK satellite TV outfit, not free or unencrypted) didn't have the mid season break. Look at the channel ident from any torrent to get a good idea of where it aired first.
Come as you are, do what you must, be who you will.
here in the denmark the national broadcaster are planing to send hd over dvb-t without any drm, would have through that if any nation broadcaster would stand aganist this deadend drm it would have been BBC.
I'm not entirely sure what the actual reasoning behind this is. It seems as if:
It's a clever idea but I can only assume that some or all of the non-terrestrial networks operating in the UK have already agreed to the demands of the rights-holders, otherwise the BBC (and other free-to-air networks) could simply refuse to do anything about it - after all, the content providers aren't going to get very far if they refuse to allow their stuff aired on any networks because none of them will broadcast it with DRM in place.
As a license-payer I can't say I like it, but with the info I have I can't see that the BBC has much choice in the matter; either they and the other FTA networks agree to broadcast some or all HD content with DRM or the idiot content providers won't sell shows to them any more.
I wonder if the DRM algorythm is inhouse produced or if they are going to use a thrid party like Alpvision, Dolby's Cinea, Digital Rapids, Teletrax, VeriMatrix, and others...
My GOD! Hackers will *NEVER* figure this one out!
That is not the point. The intent here is to create a "protection mechanism" via "technical device" (however ineffective) which serves to trigger the portion of the DMCA law (Britain probably has equivalent legal language now due to copyright "normalization" treaties) which makes circumvention without permission or fair dealing (which requires a specially granted exemption from Library of Congress here in the United States) unlawful. In other words, it doesn't matter that they locked the door with chwing gum and rubber bands, you still "broke in" according to the letter of the law and they can still sue you. In these cases the "protection mechanism" is only there to create enough of a speed bump to trigger the anti-circumvention laws, NOT to present a real technical challenge to hackers.
These large media companies better learn quick that they are not going to save their industry by making it harder to access their media. As it is now, to get media I have to buy equipment, have it installed, get the dish pointed correctly... it cuts out during storms. Cables isn't much better. The force me to order channels in "Packages" so 90% of the channels I get are either espn (dont want) or home shopping network. I have absolutely no option to get rid of these channels. When I want a DVD they delay the release for months, but will release it in other country's first. I can't order it from those countrys becuase of my DVD players country code. Then they release 1 version of the movie... wait 6 months and release an extended version of the movie... then wait another 6 months and release a directors cut and then even a "Series" pack where you can get all the sequels. OR... I can go to a torrent site... click on the movie. 8hrs later I have the full, directors cut, with all the extra features, in english and I don't have to drive anywhere. Talk about a service I'd be willing to pay for. Oh wait, they wont let me pay for it. Morons.
I've been following the BBC's internet blog for quite a while (it's pretty good) and their engineers always come across as hating DRM and if they had the choice they wouldn't use it at all.
A few months ago one of them said they were pushing to keep any content produced by the BBC DRM free and that it was only because of licensed content that they employed any DRM at all.
Based on this I'm guessing this is the upper echelons of the beeb looking to push this.
a simple compression algorithm. The parameters to this algorithm would be kept secret by the BBC
My GOD! Hackers will *NEVER* figure this one out!
The real killer, however, is that it probably isn't quite trivial to install the circumvention software on the actual TV set. So, even when it is cracked, as well as in the meanwhile, the majority of HD TV owners are going to have to shell out for new hardware.
I would have never found the best documentary series ever produced by man, Horizon.
I have learned more from watching those documentaries than going to formal schools and reading books and articles ever did. The learning, the layout and deconstruction that they provide, should be accessed freely by all of mankind. It would be a crime to lock up these wonderful programmes under DRM or similar so that people can not freely view them. They are the best most unbiased and impartial, yet still captivating, programmes that have ever been broadcast. I cannot recomend them enough.
If you are interested, and want to max out your connection for a week, I would highly recomend the following 78gb torrent of 139 of their full length documentaries
Anything that stops people from viewing horizon is a bad deal in my books. Everyone on earth should have access to this resource. As I said, its almost a crime against humanity to lock things like this away.
Monetizing quality science content makes the world population stupider.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
The problem with trying to implement a new standard in the midst of the digital switch over is encouraging people that they need to replace their TVs or Set Top Boxes when they have little or no interest in the way the channels are broadcast but simply want to turn on the TV and for it to work. In the days of environmental responsibility if this key and the software for it to work could not be rolled out via an OTA update then it's a no go. If it were restricted to simply the HD channels, boxes for which are not yet available then it may work but if it's for the whole EPG then it will certainly fail.
Actually there is no legal impediment to accessing the fta video and audio.
The only restriction is on accessing the metadata and that is only that the BBC claim it is a breach of their copyright in the compression tables.
The DTLA say that manufacturers of DTCP products MUST NOT apply DRM to FTA content. BBC are trying to argue to DTLA that content is protected and to Ofcom that it is fta.
Request to Ofcom is very misleading in several ways. E.g. The D book version with content protection requirements has not been agreed. Major bust up with Samsung and Sony opposed to BBC. Broadcast meant to start 2nd December but spec and broadcasting license not sorted shows the mess the BBC is making.
Recently the BBC Management have been doing rather odd things recently including trying to pull off "dirty tricks" report here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6167078/BBC-schedules-Strictly-Come-Dancing-against-The-X-Factor.html It seems to me that as competition in the UK Market has reached saturation point and we will see constant "on-going" battles for customers and viewer ratings. Sky is trying to rope people in hard and fast for Sky HD which they are doing with some success, but have reached the point whereby the Public are sick of putting up with advertisements, now usually 20 mins for a 1 hour show and paying through the nose for SKY and they're HD channels. Trying to be analytical about this, the BBC has to fight back somehow, but without being seen to be malicious as they need to protect Market Share. Remember Murdoch does not give two hoots who he hurts along the way and will try and rope you all in so you have no other choice but to use Sky and pay him money. The alternative is http://www.freesat.co.uk/ I have switched from SKY recently and get HD channels through freesat which is saving me a staggering £339.00 per year that would otherwise go to Sky! I have saved a lot of money and hope some of you other people take the plunge as moving to freesat can only make the BBC better value for money.
All cows eat grass!
We're allowed to reverse engineer technology in the cases where drm hinders fair use. For example the codecs on my linux box allow me to watch blu ray, someone reverse engineered them, but that's okay, because I brought the disc.
But why would you need to break the DRM on this? You can record through your digital TV (HD or otherwise) onto most recorders nowadays, if that were to change there would be hassle.
For future reference: we normaliSe with the EU, not with the USA, not yet anyway...
#FreeGary
[Shrug]
Then they should just ROT13 it.
TV listings. It's the fricking information that people will use to decide whether to watch your product -- it should be sent in the clear anyway!
There are no existing DVB-T2 receivers which will be needed to receive the UK HD broadcasts. It may be next year before any are in the shops.
Silicon is only just sampling now I think.
So for UK there are no HD digital TVs although many products would receive French or other European HD broadcasts.
According to the article "No British commercial digital TV manufacturer would risk any innovation that might invalidate their "metadata compression parameter" license,"
That wasn't what happened with DVD region coding. Manufacturers of kit do so these days for the world market (perhaps with 2 or 3 models worldwide). While DVD players may still be sold locked to a particular region, unlocking them has become trivial, usually using information provided by the manufacturer themselves.
And that's where you're wrong.
Like most US abominations, the DMCA is a US-only thing.
European laws prevent the adoption of any DMCA-like law in any country of the union. It does have something slightly similar though: circumvention is allowed unless it is done for illegal purposes; that means you're not allowed to spread information of how to break the protection of a certain service to render that protection ineffective and use the service for free, for example.
So let's all stop watching it. Seriously. Spend the time getting informed about important issues, teaching kids, fixing things, and writing code, documentation, or blogs. Build something. Accomplish something. Does anyone really *need* television? Movies? Go to the theater once in a while. The one-way content providers are on their way out precisely because we have two-way communications, right? So let's use it. They don't want us anyway.
The intent here is to create a "protection mechanism" via "technical device" (however ineffective) which serves to trigger the portion of the DMCA law (Britain probably has equivalent legal language now due to copyright "normalization" treaties) which makes circumvention without permission or fair dealing (which requires a specially granted exemption from Library of Congress here in the United States) unlawful.
No, the UK does not have any laws stipulating you should apply to the US Library of Congress for exemptions. Why you would think that a European country would care two hoots about the US Library of Congress is beyond me.
A few months ago one of them said they were pushing to keep any content produced by the BBC DRM free and that it was only because of licensed content that they employed any DRM at all.
Based on this I'm guessing this is the upper echelons of the beeb looking to push this.
It has to be. After all, they could simply say, "no". Then they'd be sold the 3rd-party programming anyway.
But the 3rd parties stand to profit from downmarket sales if the BBC does DRM. The question people should be asking is, "how does this benefit the decision makers at BBC?" I bet there's an interesting story to be had there.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Oh, right, but who's going to investigate that, the BBC?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Tell them no, then schedule the shows anyway and display text showing why they refuse for that block of time.
If it works for ESPN 360 to force cable companies to cough up money at MY expense, it should work for the BBC to make them cough up the programming DRM free.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Try telling that to all the producers of all of the disks I've rented recently. They all say (on top of the "copying is theft" lie) that circumventing the copy protection is illegal and has a fine up to (IIRC) ~£5000. There's normally two different screens, one from FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft, I think) and something like Copyright.org.uk.
Is 'BBC Radio Ripper' still a useful tool? The answer is YES! BBC Radio Ripper makes it easy to rip music from BBC Radio station. It supports to convert the music in RM, RMJ, RAM, RA and RMVB formats into MP3 format. Free to Try. http://www.111download.com/product/bbc-radio-ripper.html
The BBC are currently showing Heroes in HD. You can copy this off your HD recording box (PC with a satellite card in it) and watch it happily in HD on other devices. Why should I buy a Heroes box set if I've already got all the shows in HD from the broadcast streams?
Why then would content creators sell shows to the BBC if the BBC then don't protect the show, so the BBC lose out in content providers not selling them the shows. Its not the BBC original shows that are causing this push - its the stuff the BBC buys in from other channels.
I have equipment that can receive broadcast signals. It isn't tuned and I don't pay a license.
My brother in law has a TV that can receive broadcast signals, except there is no aerial attached and he doesn't pay a TV license.
That seems incredibly close the the "home taping is killing music" or "home taping is killing tv" arguments, which have always (AFAIK) proven to be false. Why should I buy a DVD boxed set if I've already watched the shows on tv, HD or not? The companies involved have already squeezed money out of me by virtue of my paying the Tv license which goes to the BBC, allowing them to buy the show in the first place. One also has to question what the damn point in this is - the BBC is free to watch, paid for by the license. Everyone gets it. So why put DRM in broadcasts that everyone is going to receive? I can only see two options: 1) They will restrict the HD streams so that only people who pay extra for them get them (unlikely since it's the BBC) 2) They don't want people to rip the shows and share them on the internet (when the shows tend to be available on the iplayer anyway, or broadcast in a different country well before they are broadcast in the UK)
And that's where you're wrong.
Like most US abominations, the DMCA is a US-only thing.
You're deluding yourself:
Article 6 of the Directive provides protection for "technological measures", any technology device or component which is designed to restrict or prevent certain acts which are not authorised by the rightholder.
I thought the BBC was funded with public money. Why would they care about DRM? The British taxpayer already paid for it, right?
For some mysterious reason, the BBC has been trying to keep foreigners from watching their shows, which might be understandable considering they aren't paying the British TV fees, but I still don't understand what's in it for the BBC. They're just investing a lot of money into making their TV less accessible.
Sony's PlayTV for the PS3, supposedly has a DVB-T2 receiver, though it isn't advertised as such.
Have a nice day!
All existing digital TVs only support DVB-T. HD broadcasts in the UK will be DVB-T2, a new standard requiring new tuner* hardware. So yes, you will need a new set top box, but this is nothing to do with the DRM.
(* For the picky: It's actually a new _demod_, not a new tuner. Most people won't even know what a demod is, which is why I'm simplifying).
And that's where you're wrong.
Like most US abominations, the DMCA is a US-only thing.
European laws prevent the adoption of any DMCA-like law in any country of the union. It does have something slightly similar though: circumvention is allowed unless it is done for illegal purposes; that means you're not allowed to spread information of how to break the protection of a certain service to render that protection ineffective and use the service for free, for example.
Well then you might want to contact your EU representatives and let them know. They appear to have gone and not only passed the EUCD . Since then, the member states have been scrambling over each other to make nasty implementations of the EUCD at home.
Besides, laws only apply to honest folk. The situation there at the BBC is that Microsoft toadies have been moving in and locking the BBC into anti-democratic technologies. M$ still hasn't made good on the legal obligations set by the European courts about media formats, players and browsers. All three violations come to play here in the BBC.
The time for putting up with Microsofters is over. They're killing services (e.g. BBC), jobs and the economy.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
It's free advertising for the Heroes box set. Wait, not free, they're getting paid for it.
Actually, that might be a fair trade - DRM for shows that are given free to the BBC, no DRM for shows the BBC pays for. There's still the cost of broadcasting and overhead, so maybe Heroes pays BBC something to broadcast the show.
I remember the South Park guys on an interview talking about how making any money on broadcast or theatre releases isn't important anymore - it's the DVD sales that bring in the money.
From either perspective, technology is rapidly obsoleting the old business models. I already have a Netflix box, and for $10 US per month I can watch as many (mostly old) movies and documentaries as I can handle (fortunately not too many). Just to bring it full circle, I'm enjoying catching up on Red Dwarf. :)
For double that, maybe I also get first-run TV shows, which seems to be the BBC price-point. 2015 is the year Internet streaming's cost curve is supposed to cross with broadcast's. No doubt the BBC is filled with smart people who are working diligently to stay relevant.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Compression look up tables would either be a mathematical expression or be a technical innovation - neither of which is copyrightable (the former is not patentable under the EPC either). Copyright protects creative expressions. I'm sure someone wants you to think that their key table is copyright but it is not. It may be an industrial secret - but that's not a copyrighted work.
It may be copyright if it is published, made available to the public but I think this would be hard to show as the numbers are borne out of the algorithm and not an artistic expression.
Copyright and patents are monopolies granted in exchange for either publication of the work being protected or (in the case of patents) publication of a specification enabling the reproduction of the technical aspects of an invention.
At least under UK copyright law and database rights I can at least see an argument that the BBC is making that the effort (analysis of character frequencies in current broadcasts) they went to in optimising the tables for this use gives the BBC the copyright in the text files that they are offering to manufacturers under license.
The question is whether what Myth TV has done for Freesat in reverse engineering the tables character by character is copying of these text files which may be considered to be a database.
I would like the BBC to actually have no rights but unless you are a lawyer specialising in UK copyright law I don't think your opinion gives me enough confidence.
Actually this is probably such an edge case that it would need to be resolved in court (if the BBC and someone else dares take it that far).
AC has no confidence in me, lol.
Copyright protects your work from being copied it doesn't protect it from independently made equivalents.
Database rights require that substantial resource be used in acquisition of the contents of the db, seeking out details to be put in the db. The BBC clearly hasn't made this sort of investment and so these couple of numbers aren't protected by db rights either (see eg William Hill vs FML).
No IANAL but I do have professional experience of interpreting IP law.