BBC's iPlayer's Prospects Looking Bleak 369
An anonymous reader writes "The future of iPlayer, the BBC's new online on-demand system for delivering content, is continuing to look bleaker. With ISPs threatening to throttle the content delivered through the iPlayer, consumers petitioning the UK government and the BBC to drop the DRM and Microsoft-only technology, and threatened legal action from the OSC, the last thing the BBC wanted to see today was street protests at their office and at the BBC Media Complex accompanied by a report issued by DefectiveByDesign about their association with Microsoft."
Re:Encryption (Score:2, Informative)
Run iPlayer. Watch what it talks to in Ethereal.
Download restricted media a bunch of times. Note what servers you download from.
Now on router, throttle all machines that iPlayer talks to down to 3 KB/s.
I dont care about encrypted crap and all. If you use regular IP with TCP (yah, no tunnel blocking and all), I can see your to/from information. I dont care about payload.
Filter it all and let the sysadmin sort it out.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:DRM is the problem (Score:5, Informative)
Plus, last I checked, Realplayer was cross-platform and supported rights restrictions, along with flash. Of course they can and have all been cracked, but so has Windows' rights restriction system. And, yes, as a practical matter, people want this DRM-free; the current content on TV can be tape (Tivo, etc.) recorded and watched whenever, so having the computerized version have additional restrictions placed on it is a step backwards, removes far use rights, and is something noone but the big media is interested in.
What Happened? (Score:4, Informative)
This is an interesting situation because of the BBC's role as a "state-owned but independent corporation" [wikipedia.org]. I skimmed the Wikipedia article and it appears that the BBC is a for-profit corporation, but the fact that it's state-owned leads me to believe that its funded by taxpayers. If that is the case, why should taxpayers have to pay for DRM-infested media that was sponsored by their tax money?
Re:DRM is the problem (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
All funding for the BBC comes from the UK tv licence [wikipedia.org] and the sales of programming and other commercial activity (e.g. selling Dr. Who and publishing magazines such as the Radio Times [radiotimes.com])
The BBC is controlled by the BBC Trust (formally the BBC governors) and according to its charter is "free from both political and commercial influence and answers only to its viewers and listeners" [bbc.co.uk]
The BBC added free to air distribution of its programming over satellite in order to provide maximum access to its services to its viewers. One of the side effects of this is that the BBC channels can be received with standard DVB-S equipment across most of western Europe.
This is the reason that people are angry with the iplayer situation. It artificially restricts the service to Windows users and prevents full access by all of the licence paying population of the UK. This is completely the opposite of the satellite case where reception is open to others extremely outside the borders of the UK to ensure that UK licence payers have access to the service (note it is possible to receive this as far away as Bulgaria and beyond, so we are not talking about a small over-spread here!
Re:DRM is the problem (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What Happened? (Score:4, Informative)
No, it doesn't, as the BBC currently makes money selling content to foreign stations, which would dry up if the BBC gave the content away for free.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETING (Score:3, Informative)
One thing is clear, in the real world this ground-breaking project was never going to get off the ground without some form of DRM to stop casual copying, for two simple reasons - many of the BBC's shows are supplied by independent producers, and the BBC itself has an interest in the post-broadcast DVD market. Neither would want to allow their exploitation of the product to be killed by multiple high quality copies al over the Internet. Yes I know this happens already, but it's not on a massive scale yet, and it would be naive to think that profit-seeking companies would want to sign up to a scheme that would only increase it.
Re:DRM is a Non Issue - Just Don't use it (Score:3, Informative)
So, feel free to open up Azureus and enjoy. You may find the websites uknova.com and thebox.bz quite educational, entertaining and informing. Which is funny, because that's exactly the motto of the BBC.
Re:DRM is the problem (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The BBC's Core (Score:2, Informative)
This is not say that any institution doesn't have faults, and I have read some persuasive arguments about various problems with BBC News and its entertainment programming, many of which I agree with. But that does not mean, as you build up using straw men arguments, that the Beeb is some multi-headed, unwatched giant, unaccountable, and this is especially absurd, irrelevant to the British viewing public.