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UK's Freeview HD To Go DRM
gbjbaanb writes "The BBC has been granted provisional approval to introduce copy protection for Freeview HD after they resubmitted an amended plan. Quoting from Ofcom's statement: 'In view of the fuller submission provided by the BBC, Ofcom is currently minded to approve its request for a multiplex license amendment subject to consultation responses, on the basis that in principle, content management is a justified objective which ensures that the broadest range of HD content is made available to citizens and consumers.' However, it's not too late yet — you can submit your comment and tell them you'd like to be able to record broadcast HD TV. I'm sure the 'content providers' will continue to sell content to the BBC, ITV, etc., if this is not implemented. They'll still take our license fee money (or advertising) and sell us the content, but refuse to let us record or copy it, hoping we'll go out and buy the DVD/Blu-ray as well."
So, if we can still comment, anyone have a link to do so?
Whoever thought this would end differently needs to have his head examined.
Twice.
At an Ofcom licensed specialist.
They'll still take our license fee money (or advertising) and sell us the content, but refuse to let us record or copy it
They won't be taking my 'licence fee money'. I don't pay that anachronistic tax. I encourage everyone else to do likewise.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I have a Freesat HD PVR. HD content is encrypted to the box (you can back it up but it won't play anywhere else). Some content is even flagged and won't even transfer. It must be part of the Freesat conformance requirements. Stuff is broadcast in the clear, so in theory I could use a generic DVB-S2 recorder but then I lose other Freesat features like the EPG.
... for another gunpowder rebellion.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
sarcasm at its best.
I really don't care what they do, I have a HDMI harddisk recorder. It works great even on copy protected content such as blu-ray disks etc.
I suspect these devices will become more widespread and someone is going to become quite rich making and selling these boxes.
Mine works by cloning the Device ID of the TV its connected to and pretends to be that Device from then on. Any attempt my manufacturers and movie producers to circumvent this would result in rendering lots / possibly all HDMI - through-devices such as switchers, distribution amplifiers, surround sound decoders and maybe a few displays useless.
From the article: " I'm sure the 'content providers' will continue to sell content to the BBC, ITV, etc., if this is not implemented."
My guess would be 'no' actually - they'll happily sell non-HD versions, but I doubt they will sell HD without the DRM.
Hey, if the summary writer can speculate, so can I.
you suck at trolling, but just in case anyone is dumb enough to not see the difference here...
If the BBC pays them the license fees they want to broadcast it, and the BBC in turn makes the revenue they want from you receiving the broadcast, why is it thievery to record the broadcast? If making a recording is so trivial in cost that anyone can do it, why should a recorded copy cost a premium? If it should be worth more, why aren't they asking the BBC for more to broadcast it to millions of potential recording devices?
Note that this isn't a case of simply going to some torrent site and skipping any steps such that the content creators see nothing. This is a case of providing viewership to the BBC that provides them the revenue they desire. This is why the BBC pay for the distribution rights to begin with.
I'm sure the 'content providers' will continue to sell content to the BBC, ITV, etc.
The BBC has co-production and distribution agreements with private and public corporate partners all over the world.
The BBC's resources are not unlimited. It has only so much money to buy product, only so much money to produce product.
The BBC brand name is worth only so much. The BBC has to offer its partners protection in the UK market.
Congratulations on pointing out a troll and feeding it immediately.
Nice troll. The reality is that buying DVD boxsets of TV programming is quite a new phenomenon. There was never an issue with recording TV content from the air in the past and this only changed when the studios realised there was more profit to be made. Because they can sell DVDs now doesn't mean that recording from the air is suddenly unacceptable.
If you Read The Fine Article That Wasn't Linked on the Ofcom website you'll find interesting tidbits such as:
1.4 The BBC's proposed content management approach would require Ofcom to grant an amendment to its multiplex licence, subject to Ofcom's approval of specific proposals, to allow the BBC to restrict the availability of programme listing information for HDTV services only to receivers that implement content management technology.
1.9 The content management technology required to be implemented in receivers under the BBC's proposals would permit unrestricted recordings of HD content onto digital video recorders (DVRs) but would enable broadcasters to control the copying of this content onto other devices and its distribution over the internet. The HD content would only be accessible on other consumer devices which support the same content management technologies as those used in HD receivers.
In essence, if you use a receiver without support for this DRM tech, the only thing you're going to lose access to is the Programme Listing data - it's the BBC's way of placating the drooling media execs with as little direct impact on consumers as possible. Now that's not to say that someone in the government won't make it impossible to buy receivers that don't support this in the UK, but that's what China is for.
Full PDF is here
If they roll this out to the satellite transmissions of BBC HD as well, Arrrgghhh!
I bought a Analogue / DVB-T / DVB-S combi-card that can decode DVB-S HD transmissions, and of course a HD pc monitor* to watch / edit on. I know that the BBC and ITV are pushing people for the "Freesat" service, their locked-in satellite box... they get a cut from the sales you see. I suspect vendor lock-in is one reason they want to scramble the transmissions.
Having a FTA card allows me to watch from whatever terrestrial or satellite I can pick up from. Using Linux as well to do it is no mean feat, some HD channels have changed the spec on how to receive their signals, and it messes with the audio stream (BBC-HD implicated).
Having the Freeview HD signal scrambled is not a great loss, the bit rate for terrestrial HD is as predicted appallingly low and unwatchable. The problem is the masses will look at that bad picture and think it is acceptable, because they've not seen anything else, ie. the satellite HD signal (which has also had it's bit rate downgraded recently). The same thing happened with the roll out and push for Freeview terrestrial digital television, the bit rate has been dropping all the time, it is pretty bad, analogue beats it hands down for picture and audio quality.
For a supposed free to air channel (subject to paying the BBC tax), the BBC have acted appallingly. For a regulator of UK television that was started up by the current corrupt government, they are acting exactly to type, bought off by corporate interests instead of viewers interests.
* Strangely the pc Full HD monitor costs less than a regular HD-TV, even though the size is the same, and the pc monitor deals with a higher refresh rates than a regular TV does.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I think I'm still opposed on principle but the details aren't as bad as the summary sounds.
1) Unprotected SD output is permitted for all content.
2) All content is broadcast unencrypted an can be received by any satellite receiver.
Even the listings data is not encrypted but it is compressed. The BBC claim copyright and trade secret rights in the table required to decompress the listings data. The same scheme has been used on Freesat for all it's listings data. The system and tables have been reverse engineered by the VDR and MythTV projects.
The main question about the system is whether there is any security or it just disables HD streaming outputs and multiple Blu-ray copies for users of Freeview labelled gear.
The use of the word "free" in both Freeview and Freesat is deceptive IMHO as in the UK (as many of you know) you _have_ to pay for a TV License, if you don't you can't have a TV or anything resembling a terrestrial (analog or digital) receiver. So no TV cards for your computer either. It really is not even an issue of quality anymore, I used to use the argument that the only thing I watched on the BBC was Top Gear and local news and that's still true but I'd gladly pay a token amount per view for each of those I just have a moral objection to being forced to pay for a service that I largely do not use. The fact is that if I stop paying my license I would eventually face prison time and a criminal record. Is this right?
No, the worst they'd give you is a fine.
Yeah, and you know what, content creators just rent you the bitstream. If you want to actually watch it, you're gonna have to pay again.
Except the requirement to have a TV license has bugger all to do with how much equipment you own.
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
[...] on the basis that in principle, content management is a justified objective which ensures that the broadest range of HD content is made available to citizens and consumers.
Here is a lesson for us all, on how to talk and act, if you want to push something trough that everybody hates: You state the exact opposite of what it will do. Which is of course, what everybody will want. And you get it across not only without the blink of an eye, but in a way that makes others feel like this is in fact reality, so that they start to believe it too.
Today’s wars are not fought with machines and deaths. They are fought with ideas / mindsets / realities, and people that you don’t have to kill, but instead make your “best friends”, so that they fight on your side.
I say, we as hackers (actually more “crackers”) should become the masters of that! Hack the human mind! As an extension of social engineering. But for good things!
Psychology, social dynamics, true leadership and rhetorics. Those are the key skills.
Hmm... I should make a RPG out of that, to train my army... Muhahahaha ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
How often do 99% of consumers realise they're watching encrypted DVD? Consumers won't care if it's not intrusive. ....
Yeah, they didn't care when the only devices they had which played video were televisions which were connected with DVD players. Nowadays, every other cell phone/music player can play video. You can safely bet that the unstoppable progression of technology will soon make it quite obvious to the consumer that they are being asked to pay over and over again for playing the same content on ever increasing numbers of portable devices. And they won't like it.
That is what lead us to non-DRM music; it will also eventually happen to video.
Stop reading the right wing press and think for yourself. Stalinist my arse.
"They'll still take our license fee money (or advertising) and sell us the content, but refuse to let us record or copy it, hoping we'll go out and buy the DVD/Blu-ray as well"
That's a LICENSE FEE for which you get a LICENSE to watch live TV.
The content is not "sold" to you, it's LICENSED. If you don't want LICENSED content, don't pay for a LICENSE.
The COPYRIGHT HOLDER who has the COPYRIGHT is the only person allowed to COPY it.
Understand now?
No, I thought not. This is /. after all.
... Linux users that cannot view the DRM broadcasts won't have to pay the license fee?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Don't like it? Don't watch it. Don't buy the equipment. Don't support it. Seems pretty simple.
Up until a year or so ago I was a TV licence payer in the UK - then I discovered that not having a TV didn't make any difference to my viewing habits i.e. there was nothing but shit on and the stuff I did want to see I could get other ways *legally* which, for the most part, didn't involve giving corporations money - BBC iPlayer etc. aren't subject to the license because that only covers having the capability to watch the programmes on British TV as they are broadcast - so you don't need a TV license, but get the same programmes.
And the things that are worth watching, I buy a DVD of (which I then rip, of course, but seeing as I "own" it, that's my decision). I paid for Sky until it became a million channels of crap, ten minute advert breaks and re-re-re-re-re-peats of programmes. I paid for a TV licence until the same thing happened and I realised I could just watch on iPlayer / ITV Player / 4od without (most of) the crap any time I liked. Why *pay* for something you disagree with? Voting with your feet is the most powerful commercial incentive for a large corporation... if you don't buy, say, a DAB radio, then they won't want to support it (that's what happening with DAB at the moment). It's the same thing. Stop giving your money to people you don't like... you don't go to buskers on the streets and say "I'll give you a pound, but only if you improve the way you play and correct the second note in the third stave..."... you either like it and pay for it, or you don't. And the news is that millions of people *will* pay for it (HD seems to be an addiction even amongst my techie friends that I just don't understand).
Come on, people, if you have such ideals, take a sacrifice for them - stop watching and supporting media/hardware that is DRM if you feel so strongly about it.
As a matter of fact, Digital Restrictions Management with its inherently evil capabilities for censorship will indeed make every Adam Sutler drool with joy over its Orwellian prospects.
What about when they push for IPTV? Then anyone in the UK with an internet connection will have to pay.
PS you have only to de-tune your TV to not pay the license fee. However, auto-tuning sets make this a difficult proposition to prove...
Enforcing "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength", swatting two civil liberties with one stone (or was it a bricked once-free DTV receiver?).
"War is Peace" may come to join them as soon as every TV viewer is digitally numbered and individually addressable, i.e. can be force-fed the very selected bits and pieces of information most useful to bring him or her into (party) line, and cut off from everything else.
I thought publication copyright expires someday, when the publication goes into the public domain - as in, free - but apparently following that law does not work for the copyright holders, or the government offices doing the broadcasting to the public.
I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Citizenry, your copyright law has expired.
Good thing the stuff they show on TV is tailored to be of interest to the widest (read: dumbest) audience and a waste of time to those who enjoy writing computer software or, say, reading.
Not to mention the content makers have already been paid with our license fees. When the BBC broadcasts something, viewers are allowed to watch the content whenever and however they want.
I've noticed the BBC 24 News channel does just this when it is showing video footage. There is a very faint watermark of the News 24 "globe swirls" on it.
I guess this is so if another news channel shows it without acknowledgement of the source the BBC can complain or something.
Thanks
captcha : decrypts :)
If you want people to watch your stuff... make it available to EVERYONE. Let them do what they wish, else it will never get "out there". In the case where it is "out there" it's an awful lot kinder to consumers, especially the honest ones who want to record your programmes. My, my opinion of the BBC is going downhill.
Even though it triggers Godwin's Law...
Why ? They didn't do anything extra to deserve it.
If this were enabled, then in theory then Freeview could do away with copy protection, instead using passive monitoring of various P2P sites to deter file sharing. They could use the information to prosecute, or even send warning / copy disabling / kill codes to offending boxes if they so desired.
If you can see/hear it, you can record it. So DRM is a stupid idea, it can't work. The system must allow people to see/hear what it hides, so people will copy it and remove the restrictions. Then it gets put up, DRM-free, for all to download a copy. All the DRM has done is mean people don't come to you first for distribution. To fight piracy, make it so cheap and so good people can't be bothered to pirate. Like AllOfMp3.com, before it got shut down. Offer cheap streaming, or stick in adverts, or overlay bugs, or the programs made with product placement. It's all about eyeballs and in the case of BBC we pay for anyway! I'm not going buy a set-top-box without a harddisc (so I can record) and ethernet (so I can copy it where I like). Right now, I can watch what I want, when I want to, and rather then just give people the name of a great show, I can give them a few series! Like lending a good book, but still having the book. This scheme is just to stop the freedom, that the tech sazy already have now, from spreading, but that never works, what the geeks are doing today, everyone else will be doing tomorrow. The best this cage can hope to do is slow things down a little. Personally I think it will just drive more to downloads over broadcast.
The fact is that if I stop paying my license I would eventually face prison time and a criminal record. Is this right?
No, only if you wanted to watch TV.
In the past 30 years, the only time I have watched TV is when a relative or friend I was already spending time with wanted to watch something.
Now a lot of things Steve says are pure marketing noise, but he was right on the money back in 2003 when he said:
The ONLY thing that's making people think DRM will work for movies is that, just for the moment, movies are too big to throw around on the net like MP3s. But that's short term, and already eroding. It's like the first video games came out that needed CDs instead of floppies, you couldn't easily copy a CDROM, and CD images were too big to download over your dialup modem. That all changed, as media became bigger and bandwidth became cheaper, and downloading a CDs worth of data has been trivial for a long time. It's already happening to DVD, and it's going to happen to Blu-Ray as well.
Somebody really need to licence the word "free" and require any user to actually comply with a set of simple "free" standards rules to be allowed use of the word! Seriously..
to Unfreeview
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This is ridiculous. Completely unfair given that we pay a license fee already. How on earth will this work with MythTV? answer is it probably won't.
Once they implement DRM, the BBC becomes just another commercial company. This should mean the TV licence goes away, however I bet nothing will change.
I also expect the BBC are already planning a tiered service they can charge extra for, that allows you to once again record shows like you (legally) can now for free.
I also imagine that whatever DRM they choose will assume/require Microsoft Windows for PC-based solutions, so us Linux/Mythbox users are screwed by the BBC yet again.
I would be more inclined to believe you, except for the fact that I've been seeing more and more anti-DRM comments popping up on non-geek Internet sites. For example, I was recently really happy to see that the majority of people who commented on a news anouncement about Disney's latest DRM dream, KeyChest, knew what DRM was and those who talked about DRM were unanimously skeptical about it.