BBC Activates DRM For Its iPlayer Content 282
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."
Yup (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Its like 1000's of customers cried out (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The TV market is broken (Score:1, Insightful)
All of the broadcast rights contracts are based on market exclusivity. The Beeb is obligated to make an effort not to step on the toes of broadcasters in other markets.
Still, disappointing.
Re:Yup (Score:4, Insightful)
How is it that DRM allows one to watch content? Surely people could watch content before DRM came around?
Who wants DRM? Who wants platform neutrality? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a long discussion on this on a BBC blog [bbc.co.uk].
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 [bbc.co.uk] 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 [bbc.co.uk] 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.
Whoosh (Score:3, Insightful)
And then dropped their service. Hitting them in the pocketbook is the only
I agree fully. But then, the government unfortunately doesn't, and they have guns.
They haven't activated anything (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whoosh (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree fully. But then, the government unfortunately doesn't, and they have guns.
And they made sure the peasantry didn't.
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, what? iPlayer uses GeoIP so only British citizens can download directly from them anyway (and they have peering agreements with British ISPs, so they aren't paying for bandwidth anyway). People in the UK can (and do) dump the DVB streams from the BBC and upload them to torrents. I doubt that they do the same with the iPlayer streams, because they're more traceable and lower quality.
It's worth noting that get_iplayer doesn't let you do anything that you can do with a DVR anyway. You can grab digital streams via a DVR or computer with a DVB-t card and keep them forever. There is no DRM on the OTA streams, so why does there need to be on the Internet ones?
Re:Whoosh (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
HTML5 is NOT the solution to DRM! (Score:2, Insightful)
Please, PLEASE do not suggest that HTML5 is an adequate solution to this problem. It is not. HTML5 is shaping up to be one of the biggest fuck-ups we've ever seen. The major vendors cannot and will not agree on standard codecs. It won't happen.
The only solution is for the BBC to offer their videos for download in completely-open formats. We're basically talking two options here:
1) As an Ogg container holding Theora-encoded video and Vorbis-encoded audio.
2) As a Matroska container holding Theora-encoded video and Vorbis-encoded audio.
That's the only sure-fire way to succeed. Anything solely browser-based is an automatic failure. We don't want to be restricted to watching videos in some goddamn awful HTML5 canvas-based video player. That will be worse than the Flash experience we're currently stuck with for many video sites.
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
If I want to watch the program a second time, then without DRM I can play the mp4 file saved to my hard drive, whereas with DRM, I must download it again.
Re:Yup (Score:4, Insightful)
Because you say that DRM removes rights of the consumer, which rights? Redistribution and authorized playback are the rights of the producer, not the consumer. Which is important when you're trying to convince someone to pay for a TV license on materials they can easily download online.
Consumers aren't left out in the cold! They fire up iPlayer and they get the fucking video.
Re:Oh noes (Score:3, Insightful)
XBMC bug-fix to support SWF Verification (Score:5, Insightful)
http://trac.xbmc.org/ticket/8971 [xbmc.org] 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.
Re:Who wants DRM? Who wants platform neutrality? (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh, put it in the contract. Don't sell _exclusive_ broadcasting rights of something you still broadcast yourself. Next intractable legal conundrum, please.
Re:Its like 1000's of customers cried out (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [guardian.co.uk]
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?
Re:Whoosh (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Yup (Score:5, Insightful)
Why shouldn't you be able to do whatever you want with your bought full version copy besides distribute it?
I can see limiting upgrades to upgrading previous versions that you own.
Re:Oh noes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yup (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel for the parent, as it's definitely an unpopular opinion, but in this case, it does allow streaming internet content in this instance. I don't think it was trolling, but rather just not articulated very well. Without any DRM, many vendors won't allow their streams online (at least legally). They demand these protections from the broadcasters. As much as I despise DRM, there are situations where it allow content that we normally wouldn't be allow to access. In this case, I think BBC is just in the middle and did what it had to, in order to keep it's content providers.
Re:Yup (Score:3, Insightful)
Then the same answer still applies. BBC is simply protecting it's own content and profits as they see it. Whether they are in the middle, or the producer of said content is largely irrelevant as the reasons for DRM are the same. Being from the US, I don't know what most of the content it does produce. We do see a lot of series about various topics, but they are typically free to view via Browser and also typically available via Blu-Ray or DVD. They seem to feel this gives them some sense of security, however misplaced.
I would think this would only encourage people to rip the video and save it locally rather than just viewing the stream.
Re:Oh noes (Score:3, Insightful)
"You can have iPlayer when The Daily Show and Colbert Report webfeeds are available again in the UK."
Wait - are you in a position to make this deal? I'm willing to take it!
"The geo-locking of web streams is very annoying."
My point exactly. In fact, it's more than annoying. The douchebags who "own" all that "IP" have gained to much power, and it's far past time they were slapped down. Instead of being slapped down, they've been pretty well promised ACTA as a reward.
Re:Yup (Score:3, Insightful)
But you don't have that right. You may be given explicit permission to do so, but format shifting has by no means ever been defined as a "right."
The RIAA v. Rio case of 1999 specified that files that were already on your hard drive were free to be copied to other devices, not reconverted elsewhere for free use. DRM free media has no controls keeping you from doing whatever you want with it; from one device to another has been set into legal precedence, but one format to another has not.
I'm all for consumers rights here, but several things, until this is the law of the land, then there's no argument. There is no right for it. I advocate we change that; but also, I've noticed that when we make this our geeky political hot button issue, we're kind of ignoring the realities of the world around us. This is a first world, middle class problem. There are way more important things in life than DRM. GLBT discrimination for instance, racial profiling, health care, consumer rights(Yes, DRM included here; but consumer rights go way beyond just DRM and the DMCA), and the list goes on.
Re:Oh noes (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the same whether you use an internet connected PC or a regular TV set.
Re:Its like 1000's of customers cried out (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, you're dead right. One of the DRM advocates on the BBC Blogs comment thread comes over very much as being afraid that caving to the "FOSS preachers" will result in the withdrawal of content from the content providers.
Or, to put it another way, is willing to put up with a reduction in freedom as long as all his (her?) favourite programs are available for viewing.
And then in the same paragraph, will accuse FOSS advocates of being "selfish".
Re:Yup (Score:3, Insightful)
Then the same answer still applies. BBC is simply protecting it's own content and profits as they see it.
Its content and profits? The BBC is already paid for by the British public (well, anyone who watches TV - whether or not they want to watch the BBC).
As a licence payer, I don't want them using DRM.
Re:Yup (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the UK, so RIAA v. Rio isn't relevant.
And are you seriously suggesting that everything be illegal, unless a court rules otherwise? I don't think so. That's not how it works in the UK.
The OP is clearly talking about the rights that he wants to have, anyway. As opposed to the rights that the BBC thinks it should have (even though we pay for it).
There are way more important things in life than DRM.
Ah yes, this card. So people can't spend time on more than one issue? And the issues you list are all trivial compared to even more important issues, such as world poverty - surely by your logic, we should only be spending time on the single most important thing in the world right?
And anyhow, what are you doing here, if you think it's not important? Surely there are more important things in life, than people on Slashdot talking about things you disagree with? What worthy causes do you spend your time on - and where's the evidence that this is more than what the OP spends his time on?