I've just watched the DRM podcast and I have to admit I was very disappointed. It seemed to digress into a pie-in-the-sky discussion about changing the licensing model and even changing the law, rather than concentrating on how ineffective the proposed use of DRM would actually be.
I was particularly concerned to see that someone (I believe it was James) was allowed to get away with effectively claiming that existing piracy requires the use of VHS, and that the requirement to _physically_ muck around with copying tapes meant that it could be dealt with differently to online content. Also, PVR systems which record FTA content and share it across the network were spoken of only hypothetically, not as something which already exists in the shops as a consumer product and/or is freely available in software form to run on a general-purpose computer system _today_. I think those two observations highlight the fact that the folks around the table, and the BBC in general, seem to have missed the fundamental point that the content we're talking about is _already_ freely available on the computer. You don't even need to take your computer apart to plug in a USB DVB receiver. Anyone who is inclined to do so can already stream content straight to disk and make it available from there, either over the network or by burning it to DVD and flogging it on the street corner. It requires an outlay of about £15 to buy a DVB-T receiver -- which is less than many people pay per month for their Internet connection, even if they _don't_ make a habit of downloading huge files over it. What's ironic about this is that the BBC have _fought_ for that DRM-free status. They renegotiated their deal with BSkyB so that BBC content was broadcast in the clear, and thus it _can_ be spooled straight to disk on any computer with a standard DVB-s receiver, rather than tying us in to using Sky equipment. So what's suddenly so different now? James claimed, in his summary, that content owners "need to have" DRM. That seems to be directly in conflict with the established facts, given the past behaviour of the BBC in getting _rid_ of DRM on their satellite broadcasts. Not enough thought was given to the fact that DRM prevents fair use, and legal licensed use of content. The BBC is a member of the Educational Recording Agency, and its programmes may be recorded and used by various educational licensees including schools and universities. Yet the proposed DRM scheme would seek to prevent that perfectly legal use of BBC content. Other things which the Copyright Act explicitly says do not infringe copyright would also be "prevented". I put quotes around the word "prevented" not only because it's so trivial to record from the original broadcast, but also because these DRM schemes have a long history of being broken. It was mentioned in the podcast that the Windows Media scheme has already been broken twice, and if the BBC were to start using it the motivation to crack it would become even higher. But that's OK -- the BBC's own report said that it doesn't matter if/when it gets broken, because people are naturally law-abiding, and there is "no significant monetary risk" (page 91). A few times, the point was made that geeks are already using bittorrent, but "what about my father?". I think that's a good line of thought, but let's apply it not to the geeks but to the pirates. The _pirates_ are already capable of streaming DVB content straight to disk and abusing it; what about the normal law-abiding citizen? The proposed use of DRM just makes life harder for us without really doing anything to prevent piracy. It's closing the stable door long after the horse has bolted. It inconveniences genuine users, and is a highly inappropriate commercial endorsement of a single company's products, for almost no benefit. Brian, in his summary, claimed that "the development of the business model is the real key here". In the context of the discussion at hand, I think that's completely false; online content really doesn't change the business model at all, especially given the cost of Internet bandwidth -- that whole line of conversation was a red herring. When we talk about making content available online, we're just talking about extending the status quo so that not only the geeks and the pirates but also the majority of normal people can participate. It's largely the non-technical and law-abiding folks which we'd be bringing into the fold -- there really is no need for new restrictions, and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise. I could continue, but I feel I'd largely be repeating what I've already said elsewhere, so I'm going to stop. I'd invite people to read the article at http://www.advogato.org/article/918.html in which I was slightly more eloquent about it. The BBC is in a unique position here, and should be setting the trend for the years to come; not playing sheep and following the lead which others, like Apple, are already regretting. People are moving towards viewing this kind of content on mobile devices -- phones, media players and toys like the Nokia "Internet Tablet". We're moving from a largely homogeneous environment in which Windows has a large percentage of the market, to a diverse range of clients based on open standards. Yet the BBC seems insistent on taking a retrograde step by restricting the usability of its online content, for very little real practical benefit. The proposed system not only violates the long-standing tradition of commercial impartiality, but is also inconsistent with other recent decisions regarding content availability. I really do wonder what's going on behind the scenes. -- dwmw2 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. 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