Regulator Blocks BBC DRM Plans

TheRaven64 writes "The BBC's plans to introduce DRM for over-the-air digital broadcasts were today dealt a setback when the regulator, Ofcom, asked them the same question that has been asked of many DRM systems: 'How does this benefit the consumer?' The letter to the BBC is quoted in the article as saying that 'Ofcom received a large number of responses to this consultation, in particular from consumers and consumer groups, who raised a number of potentially significant consumer "fair use" and competition issues that were not addressed in our original consultation.' This does not end the chance of the BBC being allowed to introduce DRM in the future, but it at least delays their opportunity to do so."

Comments

Re:BBC should answer to society, not companies

[Henriok]

I think BBC might be the most powerful factor in the World for this kind of arguments. We have a publicly paid broadcaster in Sweden battling the same battle but SR/SVT isn't nearly as powerful and looks to BBC for guidance. I, myself, does what I can to make our broadcasters adopt open standards for their broadcasting, but it's seems hard for them to get out of their proprietary delivery technologies (Real/Windows Media/Flash based). Amazingly hard. But I think we are getting there. Baby steps.

Re:Consumer? Pah.

[Otto]

In the specific case of "rental", I'm always entertained by the comparison of the physical vs. the virtual world here. Specifically, the difference in distribution costs. Basically, rental makes no sense for the digital world in terms of distribution.

Think about it, the cost to download the content is the same whether you purchase it or rent it. The file would be the same one either way, basically. However, with rental, the price comes down because there's some sort of agreement or enforcement to make your copy expire in some fashion.

And if you consider it that way, it actually costs the retailer MORE for rental properties, as they now have to spend money on some kind of DRM scheme to enforce the time-based part of the contract. So the only reason for them to actually do this is volume; they'd have to get a significantly higher volume to make up for the price difference. If it's $3 to rent and $9 to buy, then they'd have to rent *over* three times as much as they'd sell, since there's also three times the bandwidth to be paid for now, as well as the costs of the DRM.

Streaming suffers from this even more, now you pay the bandwidth to transfer the content *every single time* it's viewed.

So why bother with rental at all?

What if, instead, they sold the content at the rental price (or just a hair above it)? Just sell a one-time download (possibly with a confirmation scheme to ensure the download finishes). No repeats, you don't gain ownership in the sense that you can redownload it indefinitely (you delete it, tough luck to you). $3 and you can download a copy and we're done, end of transaction.

Ideally, they'd sell as many as they'd rent in this case (probably more considering it's a "buy" and buyers will take advantage of the reduced costs). The bandwidth usage is basically the same as the rental model, there's no DRM scheme to deal with and no added costs to cope with there. Essentially, they'd be able to make more money this way. Possibly a lot more.

Separation of the market into rental and purchase *doesn't make any sense* in the digital realm. When you have actual physical product to transfer around, sure, that works. But when the cost of each is basically the same, then there's little point in separation based on a price.

BBC covering their own backs

[mr_stark]

The BBC board are not stupid, they know applying to have tax payer funded content restricted isnt going to fly. They are maneuvering to cover their backs. Despite what they say the BBC are very ratings focused. They are going head to head with ITV (the biggest independent TV station in the UK) over the Saturday night prime slot with their own reality TV/talent show for example.

They want to broadcast popular shows but dont want content restriction to be used as leverage by the content providers. Rather than saying "we wont do that b/c its not in the public interest" the BBC are aiming to say "We cant use DRM b/c its against the law."