BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV

bluec writes "Generally speaking, the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts: the license fee payer pays for these broadcasts. But the BBC has tried to get around this, asking Ofcom for permission to encrypt the 'metadata' on its broadcasts – including the assistive information used by deaf and blind people and the 'tables' used by receivers to play back the video. As Ofcom gears up to a second consultation on the issue, there's one important question that the BBC must answer if the implications of this move are to be fully explored, namely: How can free/open source software co-exist with a plan to put DRM on broadcasts?"

Comments

Strange question

[BadAnalogyGuy]

How can free/open source software co-exist with a plan to put DRM on broadcasts?

It's simple, really.

Someone develops an Open Source DRM software solution, and the BBC uses it.

It's no different from a closed source DRM solution, except that since it is OSS, it may have a stronger encryption system since it can't rely on security through obscurity.

"Open Source" means a lot of different things to different people, but the basic concept is that it is the software which is free. How the users use the tools isn't part of the equation. So a good OSS DRM solution is a boon for some users (and a bane for their users). But either way, FOSS is not at all at odds with DRM.

Re:Strange question

[gzipped_tar]

Encryption strength depends on the key, not the algorithm. You can study the source of GnuPG all you want, but you can't break the encryption without the private key.

And DRM fails because of neither the key nor the algorithm. It fails because some greedy clods don't know heck about the basic principles of encryption, one of which being that you can't encrypt and not-encrypt at the same time.

Re:Strange question

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's no different from a closed source DRM solution, except that since it is OSS, it may have a stronger encryption system since it can't rely on security through obscurity.

You're operating under two assumptions that exec-types often do:

First, you assume it has something to do with the strength of the encryption. It doesn't. DVD CSS was pathetic, it's true, and can easily be brute-forced on modern machines -- but the original crack was someone obtaining the keys. Blu-Ray (and HD-DVD) were cracked not by finding some flaw in the algorithms used, but in finding the key (09 F9 ...).

Second, it is always security through obscurity. In order to play the movie, you need the key. In order to copy the movie, you need the key. Thus, in order to play the movie, you need the same thing you'd need in order to copy the movie, and there is no way around that. All DRM around audiovisual content is crackable. This is a flaw inherent in the nature of DRM. It is something which will never be improved.

Re:Strange question

[nedlohs]

If it is truly FOSS then I can modify the software to, as well sending the decrypted video to the output device, write it to a storage device in unencrypted non-DRMed format.

Hence the DRM is completely useless and pointless and there can be no FOSS media players that respect DRM.

strange headline

[Trepidity]

Maybe it's a nitpick, but the headline "BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV" to me sounds like someone is against open-source software, and has conjured up a scheme, the primary purpose of which is to harm it.

From the article, though, it seems more likely that the BBC is worried about copyright infringement, and as with many companies, the only sort-of-half-assed solution they can think of to combat it is to introduce some DRM, and the only even-more-half-assed solution they can think of to make it hard to crack the DRM is security-through-obscurity. That's incompatible with OSS, as Cory Doctorow points out, but I think out of a misplaced attempt to use security-through-obscurity, not out of an actual antipathy to open-source vs. proprietary software as licensing models. Who knows if they even realized that: 1) lots of open-source software is used in conjunction with receiving TV broadcasts (and not just by warez groups); and 2) their scheme would therefore harm an important segment of the public.

Re:Not Mutually Exclusive

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM absolutely excludes open source, Free-with-a-capital-F-as-in-Freedom software. My freedom is restricted if I am not permitted to modify the software (e.g. to write to disk instead of screen).

Re:Not Mutually Exclusive

[Trepidity]

PGP has a much easier task, though: it only needs to ensure that people with the key can decrypt content, while people without the key cannot. DRM schemes need to ensure that the same person can only decrypt given content for certain purposes, and not for other purposes.

Vastly more important question

[drsmithy]

How does DRM help the BBC provide their services to the taxpayer, better ?

BBC not the guilty party

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pretty unfair to the BBC. It should be made clear that the BBC probably isn't the one that's pushing for this. It's more likely that the BBC is being leant on by other content providers (like US networks) that it licences shows such as Heroes from, as well as movies it screens. It offers these on it's iPlayer service, so it's hardly surprising that it's being pressured into this.