I’m glad to see that the BBC’s “on-demand” service has been approved by the BBC Trust. However, I’m not so happy that they’ve decided to DRM it. On the other hand, quoting from the “BBC on-demand proposals: Public Value Test final conclusions” published by the BBC Trust:
In response to a submission from the BBC Executive, we are dropping our two-year deadline for achieving platform neutrality on seven-day catch-up TV and will instead audit the Executive’s progress every six months.
Hopefully this means that we won’t have to wait very long until they release the DRM shackles.
A good part to read is page 9. This describes why they chose a DRM system. I think their argument’s a bit pants really. It mainly boils down to agreements with the rights holders of the stuff the BBC broadcasts, and how their content must only be available for download for a limited period after broadcast. The Trust seems to have immediately jumped to the conclusion that this means that they must use DRM. This is absolutely absurd! Currently, I can go and record digital TV broadcasts (note: with no loss in quality between transmitter & receiver) and they’re not DRMed. They’re in a file too, so one could go and pirate those in exactly the same way as a downloaded non-DRMed file. Why has the Trust decided that downloading from the internet any different? The methods of piracy prevention that are currently in place (i.e. the Police) for digital broadcasts seem to be working alright don’t they?
It seems to me that the BBC Trust is like a massive sheep. In its report, it states that it’s not sure about the business models for open content. Firstly, this is a load of diabolical rubbish (CDs!). It’s just following the flock of other content vendors.
2 responses to “BBC On-demand: Big stupid sheep.”
Site by Rob Gilton. © 2008 - 2019
But sheep don’t travel in flocks do they?
I think you’re misinterpreting, or just being very optimistic about, the paragraph about platform neutrality. It doesn’t suggest that they will remove DRM at all. It just means binary players/decoders for other platforms, like Mac and Linux.
Well sheep or any other flocking animal. Wolves may have been better.
Optimistic :-/ The fact that they are going to perform a review every 6 months is a good indication that they know lots of things need to change. Hopefully this will somehow involve the DRM situation.