BBC plans

[spudtater]

The BBC is planning four new services:

• Seven-day TV catch-up over the internet
• Seven-day TV catch-up over cable
• Live TV over the internet
• Non-digital rights management (DRM) audio downloads over the internet

...all of which will be available to people who have paid their TV licence. This is A Sign Of Progress and A Good Thing.

However, there is one snag. The BBC wants to use Digital Rights Management (DRM) to severely limit the usage of the shows that it is offering. Basically, shows downloaded from the BBC website will only work for 30 days after downloading. This is A Bad Thing.

Currently, if you like a show a lot, you can stick a tape in the VCR and record it. The BBC seems to be suggesting that that won't be allowed in The Internet Age. You can keep a show for a month, after which you have to shell out for a DVD copy of it. (And anybody who's tried buying DVDs of less popular shows will realise how ridiculously high the price is set at for them.) And never mind that we've already paid for their bloody TV licence.

Compounding this is the plans to use Microsoft's version of DRM. Which means that if you use a Macintosh or, God forbid, Linux, then you're not going to get any TV over the internet at all. Luckily, the BBC Trust have jumped on this and want the DRM to be platform-independent.

Far better, of course, to have no DRM at all. When content is restricted, people seek ways to avoid those restrictions. They buy pirated DVDs (and help fund terrorism crime) or they use file-sharing software. DRM just means that the only people who suffer are the overly honest.

When the music industry treated me like a human being, I reacted by spending my money on CDs. Sure, I would download a bunch of mp3s illegally, but if I liked them, I'd go out and buy the CD; the quality was better, and it would give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Then the music industry started flooding the peer-to-peer networks with broken copies and viruses. I was no longer a customer; I was an enemy, to be strongarmed into buying their product. So I found easier, more reliable, and better quality ways of downloading mp3s, and I stopped buying CDs from the people who so obviously hated me. In fact I haven't bought a CD in about three years.

That was a slight aside. Anyway, the BBC Trust has a public consultation of the proposed plans online. Whether you agree with my strongly anti-DRM stance or not, please fill it out. It's important that they hear from actual BBC customers, and not just from companies trying to sell more overpriced DVDs.

Comments

Re: The erectile dysfunction drug Viagra may have found a new, potentially life-saving use in hospit

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

OMG, the spambots are now targeting your LJ! You lucky thing.

I'm having trouble answering the questions because they keep turning into spiders on the screen. As I've agreed with pretty much everything you've said I'd be grateful if you'd write some answers and I'll edit them to make them my own. Please!

DRM stuff is evil.

Have you tried emusic.com? Mark and Graham both use it. If you type in /amp3 afterwards you get 50 free downloads instead of 25 but I didn't tell you that.
:-P

[leynos.livejournal.com]

It's always seemed to me that things work best when mutual trust exists between content producers and consumers. Piracy will always happen, but it gets worse as companies try to nail down their customers.

The good news about DRM is that it's inherently broken, since it has to at some point be decrypted to be played. But it's too late by then. The damage has already been done by that point.

The continued mistrust that's thrown about feels like some massive downwards spiral. :(