Anti-DRM Activists Take On the BBC

An anonymous reader writes "Activists from Binary Freedom Boston have launched a campaign calling on the BBC to release their content online without DRM or proprietary formats. You might remember the BBC asking us about this earlier and even though the public chose not to use DRM by a landslide, they still decided to use it. EMI and Amazon have already ditched DRM. How long before the BBC does?"

Re:Freedom of information act may already cover th

[LehiNephi]

The BBC has actually done this at least once in the past. A while ago, they released recordings of the BBC Orchestra playing Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 6-9 in MP3 format, for free on their website. I jumped at the chance and downloaded them, and still listen to those recordings occasionally.

Re:youtube geo-blocked "bring the UK to the world"

[aslate]

This has always been the way. The BBC operates as an internal and external company, with BBC World being entirely self-funding (and must do so under the BBC charter). The other main reason for the geoblocking on online BBC media is the fact that the BBC often are not the sole copyright owner with many productions being produced by studios for the BBC who often retain some rights.

Re:Freedom of information act may already cover th

[Angostura]

And they were jumped on by the regulators and the BBC Trustees. The BBC had to commit to them to not do any such thing in the future.

(It was the full set of symphonies, actually).

Re:Free

[TheRaven64]

By "radio license" I meant the discounted TV license for people who only have radio sets and no TV, obviously.

There is no such license. There are two forms of TV license; those for people with black-and-white TVs, and those for colour. There is also a concessionary rate for blind people, I believe. There is no 'radio license,' 'TV license for people with only radio sets,' or any other form of license required to receive non-TV BBC material. You don't need a TV license to browse news.bbc.co.uk, nor to listen to Radio 4.

Re:Freedom of information act may already cover th

[AlecLyons]

such as restricting playback to the UK, where if you have a PC capable of watching it, you must have a license

Not quite. You only need a license if you are capable of receiving the television broadcasts. Actually I think that the letter of the law says you only need a license if you use equipment to receive the broadcasts (ie you don't need one if you have a tv but only use it to view CCTV, of DVD's).

That said the TV licensing people are very very aggressive. They seem to think a residential address not having a licence is evidence of infringement in itself.

Re:youtube geo-blocked "bring the UK to the world"

[VJ42]

No, I think it's more complicated than that, as I understand it the world service [wikipedia.org] still recieves FCO funding, however BBC world [wikipedia.org] has to be self funding.