BBC Chooses Microsoft DRM Platform 384
bazorg writes "The BBC has chosen Microsoft's DRM technology to limit the viewing of content downloaded from their website. These downloads would allow viewers to catch up on shows that were broadcast on the previous 7 days; they would be compatible only with Windows Media Player and a new product called 'iPlayer'. This iPlayer is not yet available for platforms other than MS Windows, which caused the Open Source Consortium (OSC) to file a complaint to national and EU authorities. 'The BBC aims to make its content as widely available as possible and has always taken a platform agnostic approach to its internet services. It is not possible to put an exact timeframe on when BBC iPlayer will be available for Mac users. However, we are working to ensure this happens as soon as possible and the BBC Trust will be monitoring progress on a six monthly basis.'"
What makes this really suck... (Score:4, Informative)
Not for Linux (Score:5, Informative)
What about dirac (Score:4, Informative)
http://dirac.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
http://schrodinger.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
BBC Trust != BBC (Score:1, Informative)
Re:What makes this really suck... (Score:3, Informative)
Complain? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Doesn't and can't exist. (Score:4, Informative)
It will eventually have DRM and If I'm not mistaken, there are projects currently working on it. But the thing is, the DRM doesn't have to work by locking everything down. All it has to do is lock the content down. So it isn't exactly that open source DRM but rather DRM that will work with open source. It was explained to me that this is possible. I cannot seem to find the links to it but I remember a project who was working on a GPLed opensource product that institute DRM. It went something like a ssha encryption of the binary content and the provider generated an encrypted key based on your key which was based on your account information(from the provider). Then whatever player you were using needed a plugin that used another program to decrypt the media and stream it into the player.
I even had a discussion on slashdot [slashdot.org] with Bruce Perens where he said it was possible to lock down hardware and all with DRM in a similar manor. Of course he was talking about then non-existant revisions of the GPLv3 draft. So this might have changed. I haven't heard anything on it though.
Re:What's the alternative? (Score:2, Informative)
Or, unless you are technically savvy enough to go to any one of many websites like http://vixy.net/ [vixy.net] and paste the address of the YouTube video into the provided box and have it automatically converted and downloaded for you.
Ah, maybe that's why the BBC didn't do that...
Re:Doesn't and can't exist. (Score:5, Informative)
We had this entire discussion on Sunday (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/22/2 08205) but to summarise:
You do not pay you licence fee to the BBC. You pay the government for the right to be able to receive television broadcasts from any source in any format. Read your licence.
The government funds part of the BBC providing it fulfills its charter and provides public service facilities for use during times of crisis.
Web streaming is NOT covered by the charter nor, therefore, by any funding provided by the government. You licence fee is totally irrelevant to this discussion
You are correct when you say that the BBC is restricting choice to those who use Windows systems - I am as unhappy with this decision as you are. However, they are free to provide web streaming in whatever format they choose with no regard to outside influence (either government or licence payers). They have chosen to stream to the largest possible user base that supports DRM (i.e. Windows). We are stuck with their decision - but from a business point of view it make sense.
DRM, or some other form of control over who can receive the data. is necessary in this instance. If they were to stream data around the world they would be breaking the terms of their own broadcasting licence and annoying other broadcasters in other countries. For example, if they are streaming coverage of the Olympic Games in near-real-time then they would be providing unfair competition to broadcasters in other countries.
No surprise (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Doesn't and can't exist. (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, as I understand it, the BBC has been pushed into using DRM not because providing free unrestricted content might harm the BBC's own commercial interests, but because it might harm their rivals' (eg ITV, Sky). The BBC's most recent charter review, where the government decides whether the BBC can continue to collect TV licence fee revenue, carefully scrutinised whether the BBC's free content offerings would "distort the market" (ie make it too hard for commercial rivals to compete). DRM is the price the BBC is having to pay to release its content over the internet without harming its rivals too much.
Personally, I think it's daft of the government: effectively they are telling the BBC it mustn't offer too good value for licence fee payers' money. As a licence fee payer, I'd like the best value for money possible, thankyou very much, and I don't care two hoots about ITV's or Sky's commercial interests!
Re:Not for Linux (Score:1, Informative)
I'm afraid that you are talking crap. Please see my posts elsewhere in this thread
Nobody pays a tax to the BBC. UK citizens for a licence to allow them to receive ANY TV broadcasts from ANY source and in ANY format.
The Government partially funds the BBC to fulfill its charter. The BBC is obliged to provide significant public service broadcasts in addition to regular TV which must 'educate, inform and entertain'. They get stuck with providing schools broadcasts, arts programs, and a host of other programs that the average couch potato has no interest in watching. No other UK broadcaster has this obligation nor do they want it, hence they do not get Government funding.
Web streaming is OUTSIDE the requirements of the BBC's charter. They are free to do what they want. In this regard, they have NO existing obligation to the UK Government, UK citizens or anyone else. It is a business decision which will have to stand or fall on its business merits.
The BBC (or any other broadcaster for that matter) has to comply with its own licence regarding transmissions and intended audience. Although I think that DRM is despicable, they have to use it or something similar to comply with international law.
Free The BBC (Score:4, Informative)
I'm wondering if there's mileage in an anti-trust suit against the Beeb for this...
Open source DRM (Score:3, Informative)
I recall the discussions about a GPLed DRM system also, and my recollection was that it was widely criticized for being impossible to achieve without a hardware module, or binary blob. At some point, you need the black box that does the magic and hides the keys from the user. Even if you pile on layers and layers of encryption onto the key (which is basically what AACS does), somewhere you have to decrypt the content in order to let the user view it. If you have a system that's open, where the code that's being executed at any given moment can be analyzed, then you're never going to be able to avoid letting the user get their hands on the key. (Or even more easily, just letting them get their hands on the decrypted content.)
Just to follow on your example, in such a system, the plugin would probably have to be a closed-source binary blob, or else you could just modify it to intercept and spit out the decryption key as it was being received from the provider. (I'm not trying to personally attack you -- what you created there was as good a DRM system as most of the real ones on the market, but it's running into the fundamental limitation of DRM.) It's all smoke and mirrors.
Anyway, after doing a little Googling, I think the "open source DRM" thing a while back was related to someone on the Gstreamer project discussing adding support for DRMed formats -- but it's still not clear how they'd accomplish that. Some people have pointed towards Sun's drm-opera [java.net] project as one possible avenue, but AFAIK that's nothing but vaporware, and it too was widely criticized as being impossible when Jonathan Schwartz announced it. According to this article [drmwatch.com] there have been two past attempts to create "open source DRM": one was OpenIPMP in 2002, another was Media-S, more recently.
OpenIPMP has a SourceForge project page [sourceforge.net], although the latest update was a year ago. Apparently there's some code that can be downloaded, but aside from that they are cagey on how it works, and heavy on buzzwords. Nothing about it makes me suspect that they have really discovered anything huge (and a DRM system that didn't rely on obscurity would be pretty huge). If anyone is familiar with the project and wants to comment, I'm genuinely curious.
Media-S [sidespace.com] apparently evolved out of an effort to make a "Secure OGG" format. They at least have an FAQ. Basically, they're going for the straightforward 'binary blob' route:
Re:They will hack it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not for Linux (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Doesn't and can't exist. (Score:3, Informative)
Specifically, the BBC made a grand total of £6.9 million in profits from BBC Worldwide last year according to their official figures linked to above, and the planned spending on iPlayer and related digital offerings as per the Guardian page is £1.2 billion. Explain to me again how BBC Worldwide is funding iPlayer?
Re:Doesn't and can't exist. (Score:3, Informative)