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BBC Activates DRM For Its iPlayer Content
oik writes "The BBC has quietly added DRM to its iPlayer content. This breaks support for things like the XBMC plugin as well as other non-approved third-party players. The get-iplayer download page has a good summary of what happened, including links to The Reg articles and the BBC's response to users' complaints."
This is why you don't touch DRM even a little bit. It doesn't matter if you only buy the open content and so the DRM sits there unused. The purpose for that DRM framework is to do stuff like this to you further down the line. DRM is a tool designed for the sole purpose to take stuff away from you, and you shouldn't tolerate its presence.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
A stupid decision given the BBC broadcast DRM free mpeg2 over the airwaves. A £30 USB TV card will let you record broadcast quality TV, so why do they feel that lower quality net streaming is a risk?
I don't think its optional. If you have a TV, you pay for BBC etc, like in Denmark.
ooooor am I getting it wrong?
Only the people who read this website actually care. DRM will never die because users are used to putting up with inconvenience and absurd costs for their media. Customers just accept anything, be it overpriced cable TV service(you pay a monthly fee, then you also have to pay per view), or an extremely disruptive level of advertising in programs.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
They'll let you off if they visit and you don't have any receiving equipment set up, i.e. no cable or satellite box in your home, and no antenna connected. There was talk of them changing the licence fee so that anyone who could use the iPlayer (i.e. anyone with flash and an internet connection) would be billable though.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
There's a long discussion on this on a BBC blog.
Also, bear in mind that when the BBC says "Rights holders require us to implement DRM" that the BBC potentially is being obfuscatory, because the rights holders it's talking about may in fact be companies the BBC owns in part or in full. I.e. the BBC might be trying to hide "We want DRM". E.g. see this post from Anthony Rose giving BBC Worldwide as the prime example of the DRM-requiring rights holders.
Finally, this is from a comment I left on the linuxcentre blog:
BBC Trust is running a consultation on the BBC strategic review. One of the key questions is regarding platform neutrality. It is very important that people fill in that survey and let the Trust know how important open ly specified access is. In particular the following is important for platform neutrality:
* BBC Ondemand should *not* be built on proprietary, single-vendor technologies, such as Adobe Flash.
* BBC Ondemand should be built on multi-vendor, open, non-discriminatory standards, such as HTML5 video.
* The BBC should *not* be in the business of dictating which ondemand client implementations may access iPlayer and which may not.
These things are important both for free software, but also more generally for a healthy market. It is not in the public interest for the BBC to become the king-maker of client device implementations. Please take the time to let the Trust know your views on platform neutrality and how the current situation is bad for the greater public interest.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
I stopped paying the TV license when they introduced MS DRM on iPlayer originally (I haven't had a TV for a while, but I kept paying the license fee because I thought the online news was valuable). I'm absolutely disgusted by this. The BBC streams HD H.264 unencrypted over the air. It's absolutely ludicrous that they should DRM the online streams. If you want to pirate their content, just stick a DVB-T card in your computer, grab the streams, and upload them (optionally after transcoding). This is exactly what happens - you can get anything on iPlayer from various torrent sites at a higher quality from the OTA broadcast. So why are they adding DRM? There is absolutely no legitimate justification for it.
The BBC is a large organisation. They should not bow to pressure on this issue - if content is not available DRM free then they should refuse to license it at all, even for terrestrial broadcast.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They haven't "activated" anything, there have always been restrictions on the content available via the iPlayer, both downloadable and streaming - thanks mostly to all the spanners in the "content" industry demanding time limits and (more reasonably) geographic limits.
I have to say I'm torn here; on the one hand I understand that while a lot of the content on the iPlayer is owned in whole or in part by the BBC, there's a lot that isn't and they have to play nice with the owners of that content - in this case preventing 3rd party applications from downloading or re-streaming their content outside of the above limits - but at the same time, as a licence fee payer, I want the BBC to play nice with me as well.
The BBC do a pretty good job when you compare the iPlayer to offerings from other media organisations, but I'd rather lose a few imported shows to the commercial networks if it means they can be less restrictive about what they broadcast.
Do you have rtmpdump installed by any chance?
The BBC make available low-res streams. Totem supports these. My understanding is the higher-res streams now require rtmpdump installed to access, which is a tool that's hard for distros to ship due to anti-circumvention laws. E.g. Adobe have tried to use the DMCA to take down rtmpdump.
I.e. my understanding is that the BBCs' move only frustrates those who must shy away from all legal risk. It doesn't really stop anyone - DRM never does.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Oh, rtmpdump implements "SWF verification", a silly little Flash DRM support scheme, which is what the BBC have enabled on iPlayer recently.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Even if we had guns, we're not exactly going to launch an armed insurrection because the BBC has asked someone to stop running an open-source iPlayer client.
Hell, the Yanks couldn't be bothered to get another revolution together for the PATRIOT act, let alone a TV licensing spat.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
No they haven't - and they can't because it would break millions of deployed set-top boxes. They have been asking for permission to encrypt the channel guide metadata, but they weren't able to provide any rational justification for needing to.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I don't know how they are doing it in the UK, but already several European countries (e.g. Denmark, Germany) also charges for an Internet connection as well. They actually found a way to tax access to the Internet, with the reason that you have the possibility to use the state radio/television online services. Many have been wondering if binoculars will be next (watching TV from your neighbor could be a possibility of use as well).
(yes this can be compared with sex)
iPlayer has been broken since day one, as far as I'm concerned. "You're in America, and we refuse to play anything for you, you colonial barbarian. All content on this site is reserved for refined, sophisticated subjects of Her Majesty, the Queen, properly located within Her Majesty's Realm."
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I've not got rtmpdump installed to the best of my knowledge (at least, there's no file containing that name on my system). I've just tried this:
get_iplayer --get --modes=flashvhigh 859
Which gets a pretty large (670Mb) Flash file containing a 45-min episode of Top Gear which I assume that's hi-res (it looks it).
So again - works for me using a pretty much default install of Ubuntu 9.10.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
The BBC only has distribution rights within the UK. They have sold those rights to a 3rd party in the US. They can't stream the content to you because they are legally not allowed to.
http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/8971 adds support to use librtmp which supports RTMPE including SWF Verification and Adobe's so-called "Secure" Token authentication.
it's worth repeating that there is absolutely zero security of any kind in Adobe Flash RTMPE. everything can be obtained publicly; or is "magic constants", or is simply a complex chain of algorithms, the result of which is merely an increase in CPU usage, heat generated and money wasted, along with the dangerous illusion of security.
Um, yes they have. Their first priority was to apply DRM to the metadata, but they requested OFCOM to review whether encryption should be allowed. Read their original request.
While it first did indeed look as if OFCOM would stop the BBC's treacherous plans, they have since softened and it currently looks as if DRM is well on it's way.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/09/ofcom
and they can't because it would break millions of deployed set-top boxes.
The BBC has a few sneaky tricks up their sleeve for that. They would start by applying it to all HD channels.
And then they'll do what they did to encourage people to switch to digital receivers in the first place: launch new channels and water down your previous service so much that everyone upgrades. As long as they still show the news they're still doing their job right?
Bullshit. They will care, as soon as someone switches the DRM server off. Which already happened more than once, and created massive anger, especially among Joe Sixpack types, who sued. As soon as (tabloid) newspapers notice these events, they will warn about the DRM fraud schemes. Which the Joes will read. Resulting in mass-avoidance.
The normal guy on the street luckily still thinks that he owns what he buys. Even if it’s information (e.g. movies). So if that what he thinks he owns, goes away in any way, he will sue for fraud/theft/etc, avoid them, and tell his friends to avoid them. Simple as that.
It’s the natural rule of maximum efficiency. As soon as buying DRMed stuff becomes negative compared to the other choices, it dies. Period. (The trick is to offer better choices. But that’s already in the works, as artists leave their publishers droves, as soon as they can get out. To then do their own thing, and get a multiple of the money they got before.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
The old saws about this are "don't awaken the sleeping giant" and "let sleeping dogs lie", and Obama has violated both. My prediction is: He's going to have quite a rude awakening as he has vastly underestimated the power of an awakened, riled, American citizenry.
Who we gonna vote for, the Republicans? Each side pretends to love liberty when out of power, and then embraces authority once they gain power.
The only thing that will fix things is a third party, and the only thing which will make a third party viable is instant runoff voting. That won't happen until things get really, really broken.
Which may or not may be that far off once people toss in the towel on the dollar pyramid scheme.
Hula etc don't work for my country...
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
I've not got rtmpdump installed to the best of my knowledge (at least, there's no file containing that name on my system).
Do you have a file flvstreamer (which is a fork of rtmpdump used by get_iplayer)? If so it's the same thing, and if it works on the BBC's streams then it's been patched to get around Adobe's verification, so is a copyright circumvention device.
Hulu has been broken from day one, as far as I'm concerned. "You're in the UK and we refuse to play anything for you, you dumb limey. All content on this site is reserved for kick-ass, true-bloodied Americans, hell yes, properly located in God's own country. USA! USA!"