
BBC Attacks the Open Web, GNU/Linux in Danger - kurtable
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/02/bbc-attacks-the-open-web-gnulinux-in-danger/index.htm
======
DanBC
The BBC makes a lot of content available for free. (The licence fee is payable
whether you watch BBC tv or not).

The BBC doesn't produce all the content they show.

Rights owners have considerable control over what happens to the content.

Thus, many BBC radio programmes are downloadable as MP3 and can be kept
forever. An excellent programme _In Our Time_ [1] has made their entire back
catalogue available, but a programme that has music ( _Desert Island Discs_ ,
or any live concerts on BBC Radio 1) will have much more restricted download
conditions.

iPlayer (hateful stupid ridiculous name) really is amazing. The BBC led
OnDemand viewing in the UK. And what we've got now is very very much better
than the RealAudio kludge we had years ago.

So, really, the target here should be stupid rights holders who don't
understand the benefits to greater viewership.

They need to come up with some other way of paying people who create content.
The BBC is (at least, I hope they are) collecting a lot of data about how
often programmes get watched or downloaded over their various online services;
so maybe payment could be linked to download amounts somehow.

Paying content creators in a better way would also help "archive" services
like BBC Radio FourExtra, which suffers from heavy rolling repeats.

~~~
jiggy2011
It's payable if you watch any TV "as it is broadcast" so that means watching
via a cable/satellite/freeview or watching stuff that is being streamed on
iplayer the same time as on TV.

Weirdly though you don't need one to watch iplayer "catch up" content which is
usually available about an hour after the initial showing.

So if you watch a lot of iplayer catch up you don't have to pay, but if you
consume no BBC content and just use your TV to watch Sky1 or whatever then you
do have to pay.

~~~
stuartmemo
Incorrect. You need a license to watch the BBC online.

<http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/>

~~~
hahainternet
The very first paragraph on your link:

> You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as
> it's being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer,
> laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder.

You just confirmed he was right.

~~~
Strshps1MoreTim
What are you trying to say exactly??

iPlayer itself displays a ton of warnings that you need a TV license to use
it.

~~~
coderholic
That's only for the live feed, not any of the catch up content.

~~~
Strshps1MoreTim
Get a clue, the Windows setup says something like "Do not install without a
license"

~~~
kelnage
They really are correct. I've had this confirmed by the TV Licensing folks
directly.

~~~
Strshps1MoreTim
My bad.

------
ekpyrotic
Attack articles will not change the views of those working in the BBC's policy
department. If you/we believe there are societal/economic benefits to the open
web, they must be argued persuasively and clearly.

Too many digital commentators and bloggers do not engage with these issues in
any productive way.

Attack articles do not reform political procedures, substantive policy
suggestions do.

The BBC quite obviously, and validly, worries that open use of its content
will put it at a competitive disadvantage. They can foresee International
producers withdrawing content from its platforms if its distribution channels
are not duly protected. That does not seem like an unfair concern.

There might be space to argue that the BBC is being short-sighted. That is to
say, that while we understand its concerns on this issue, the introduction of
DRM will negatively affects its longer term success. That is to say, the
success of the BBC has been prefaced on the wide distribution of its original
content around the world. In fact, it wouldn't be too strong to say the BBC's
reputation rests on the free, worldwide distribution of its news programming
-- today this has been inherited by its news website.

We might press the concern that locking all of its content behind DRM
technology will harm the wide distribution of its content, hurting awareness
of its international brand.

We ask the BBC to consider the following example: fears of recording radio
programming have existed since the early 20th Century. If the BBC, cracked
down on its distribution in response to those issues in the 50s-, we believe
the BBC wouldn't be the worldwide powerhouse it is now.

Locking up its content is not in the long term interests of the BBC brand,
esp. as the developing world -- China, Brazil, Russia -- start looking online
for reliable programming.

Therefore, we call on the BBC to initiate a review into the implications of
its policy decision, and its effect on international brand awareness.

This isn't my argument, but at least it understands, appreciates, and responds
to their economic concerns.

~~~
Strshps1MoreTim
The guys who control BBC are not employes of policy or any other BBC
department. The old boy networks in UK currently see the open Internet as
extremely dangerous and will do almost anything to
monitor/limit/regulate/restrict it.

~~~
anigbrowl
This is exactly the sort of the thing the grandparent talks about. Your post
has rhetoric but no substance. If you want to be persuasive, show your
evidence and make an argument. A bunch of unsupported assertions just reads
like a temper tantrum.

~~~
Strshps1MoreTim
Well, I'd say any person with a bit of practical experience will understand
that the way BBC (one of the most influential medias in the world) policies
are set is not by hiring people and letting them work based on high morale
criteria. I have myself worked for BBC, all the important decisions in the
department I was with were run trough and ultimately dictated by some Lady,
that was the boss of some media fairness committee. That committee was
privately funded, completely outside of public control.

On the Internet politics in UK, just look at the laws the Parliament passes.
All the traffic in UK is now logged by the providers and available to the
government agencies. There are a few black lists. The government is spending a
ton of money on the Cisco, IBM, Oracle systems also employed by China and
Saudi Arabia.

------
rimantas
So, how exactly BBC attacks the whole open web? Do they demand, that _all_ web
content should be DRMed? How did it become so, that wanting some feature means
you are attacking all those who don't want and don't need that feature? Say
HTML5 gets DRM. So what? What exactly forbids you not to use it? The web is
open because there are people wanting to give away content for free, not
because there is no DRM tech built-in in HTML. You cannot force openness for
those unwilling. If some company thinks it needs DRM, let it have it. If they
think it is essential and web does not provide it they just won't use web tech
and will have some proprietary plugins for that. How exactly GNU/Linux is in
danger there? They don't like it, they don't implement it. End of story.
Seriously, people, calm down. I am being sick from all that hysterics about
attack on web (just because somebody chose to develop a native app, shock and
horror), walled gardens, etc.

~~~
onemorepassword
HTML itself is a fundamentally open standard on which the entire op web is
built.

Adding DRM to that ends that. Period. No hysterics.

The attempt to add DRM to HTML is a full frontal attack on the open web. This
is not subject to interpretation or nuance, that is equivalent to being "a
little bit pregnant".

~~~
acdha
> Adding DRM to that ends that. Period. No hysterics.

Your post is nothing but hysterics.

Adding DRM support allows browsers to decide what to do in their UI in a
standard way. It doesn't force unwilling content providers to use it and
claiming that it closes the web is like claiming that HTTP should not support
passwords because someone could use them to prevent open access to a page.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>It doesn't force unwilling content providers to use it

This is like claiming there is nothing wrong with Microsoft's traditional
efforts to promote developer tools that can't produce software for non-
Microsoft operating systems because "it doesn't force unwilling software
developers to use it." The problem isn't for Microsoft or those who develop
for Microsoft platforms, it's for those who want to use or develop non-
Microsoft platforms.

It's not about Hollywood, it's about everyone else. If you put DRM in HTML
then I as a user can't use it from an open source web browser on an open
source operating system. If you put DRM in HTML then I as a software developer
can't write a competitive web browser or operating system without permission
from Hollywood.

It's not about "protecting content" -- all the content is already on The
Pirate Bay and Hollywood is doing fine -- what it's about is creating
gatekeepers. It's about leveraging the dominant position the studios have over
the market for video production into a gatekeeper position in content
distribution, so that they can use it to make sure smaller content producers
can't get access to customers without using their approved devices with their
approved software, which ultimately allows them to collect a toll even for
things they didn't create, and choose what message gets seen by the people and
use that to frame the public debate as they've traditionally been able to do.

Even if you don't think that's what it's about or that's what their goals are,
that's still what it enables and why it needs to be stopped.

~~~
acdha
> If you put DRM in HTML then I as a software developer can't write a
> competitive web browser or operating system without permission from
> Hollywood

Look, I dislike DRM at least as much as you do but whether or not we like it,
DRM is not going away any time soon. When you protest HTML5 gaining a standard
way to specify this, you're saying “I would prefer most of the internet run on
close binary plugins controlled by a single vendor until the rest of the world
adopts my political views”. Since most people are going to stop using Netflix,
Hulu, etc. I would at least like the system to be standard, competitive and
well-secured.

Finally, it's a canard to make this an open source issue: it's really about
control of the underlying platform: if the decryption key is extractable, it's
game-over – and so the studios desperately want to end general purpose
computing. Neither Windows nor WinDVD were OSS and yet the first DVD key
extraction happened there shortly after release.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>Look, I dislike DRM at least as much as you do but whether or not we like it,
DRM is not going away any time soon.

I don't understand where people got this idea. The only reason it hasn't gone
away is that we haven't made it go away. If the likes of the BBC and
technology companies would collectively say "sorry, DRM is poison, we're not
having any part of it" then it would already be gone. Sympathizing with or
defending their refusal to do so only makes them less likely to do it, and
makes the day when DRM only exists in the history books take that much longer
to arrive.

>When you protest HTML5 gaining a standard way to specify this, you're saying
“I would prefer most of the internet run on close binary plugins controlled by
a single vendor until the rest of the world adopts my political views”.

How do you imagine any DRM could possibly work that isn't based on "closed
binary plugins controlled by a single vendor"? Perhaps "closed binary plugins
controlled by a cartel of large colluding vendors"? How is that better?

You can't actually publish how the DRM works in the standard or it isn't DRM
anymore. You can't allow competitors to produce their own independent
implementations or "competitors" from Russia will produce implementations that
allow copying. Open standard DRM is an oxymoron. What they're talking about is
adding to the standard a flag that says "use this proprietary DRM solution" --
in other words, promoting more binary blob nonsense, instead of encouraging
content distributors to just be rational and abandon the whole idea.

>Finally, it's a canard to make this an open source issue: it's really about
control of the underlying platform: if the decryption key is extractable, it's
game-over – and so the studios desperately want to end general purpose
computing. Neither Windows nor WinDVD were OSS and yet the first DVD key
extraction happened there shortly after release.

How is it a canard? It isn't a matter of which platforms are secure, it's a
matter of which platforms are legal. No DRM is secure. But open source exposes
the facade of DRM security so comprehensively that no such implementations are
allowed to be licensed. Or, if you're being more cynical, the point of DRM is
to claim that against open source implementations in order to justify
prohibiting them, so that they can prohibit free and open competitors to the
Hollywood-sanctioned wall gardens that allow major content distributors to
collect unjustified rents from smaller content providers and control the
public discourse.

~~~
acdha
Again, you're confusing DRM with access to the private keys. Any time you say
you can't publicly specify how DRM works, you are either speaking in ignorance
or trying to deceive, both of which help the pro-DRM PR campaign.

If we can't get Hollywood to accept reality, we would at least be better off
with the open W3C proposal (you _did_ read it, right?) rather than continuing
to entrench a massive proprietary plugin.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>Again, you're confusing DRM with access to the private keys.

How do you imagine DRM could be implemented _without_ access to private keys?
Somewhere there exists a piece of proprietary software or hardware that holds
the secret. By putting this in the standard you make the standard impossible
to fully implement without including that proprietary software or hardware.

>If we can't get Hollywood to accept reality, we would at least be better off
with the open W3C proposal (you did read it, right?) rather than continuing to
entrench a massive proprietary plugin.

Did you read it? This is from the abstract: "This specification does not
define a content protection or Digital Rights Management system."

In other words, they're not standardizing DRM, they're bastardizing the
standard so that inherently non-standard proprietary DRM solutions can
interface with it and fragment the web into a series of proprietary walled
gardens based on which DRM system (if any) your platform implements.

------
CJefferson
I felt this was a fairly poor article. One of the most telling (for me) quotes
was: "Dedicating itself to sharing knowledge and creativity - not just in the
UK, but everywhere in the world - is an important and worthy cause, and I will
happily pay my (compulsory) £145.50 each year to support the BBC in this."

This, I feel, misses the entire point of DRM. It is the belief of the BBC that
adding DRM makes them money, by making it easier for them to sell their
content, both as DVDs and overseas. I don't believe the BBC would put DRM on
their content purely for the fun of irritating people.

So, the question isn't "would you pay your £145.50". The question is, how much
more would you pay?

Taking some very vague numbers, there are just under 25 million TV licenses,
and BBC international made £160 million profit last year on a turnover of
£1bn. I'm not sure how much of that turnover is "value for the BBC" (are they
paying to make TV programs?), but this means I can badly handwave that
removing DRM might cost between around £7 to £40.

Would most people in the UK accept an increase in their licence fee of £7 in
return for DRM free, and allowing everyone around the world to get free access
to BBC programs? I suspect, unfortunately, the answer is no.

(Sorry if this is a bit simplistic, a true "the money of DRM" would be
interesting, if contraversal. But, I feel this article really is ignoring the
real most important issue, the money).

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>this means I can badly handwave that removing DRM might cost between around
£7 to £40.

How do you come to the conclusion that it would cost the BBC anything to
remove DRM? If anything it would save them any money they currently spend
implementing it and hopelessly attempting to secure it.

The "cost" of not having DRM, if any, is that some content distributors may
refuse to license to them without it. The article itself points out that this
has demonstrably not occurred in the past, but even if it did, why is that a
cost to the television licensee? The money not paid to license that content is
still available to license some other content from someone not so irrational
on the point of DRM, or to fund new original BBC programming, or (if you're
more worried about the cost to the public than providing more content) to use
to reduce the price of a television license.

Let me say that again: It costs nothing to remove DRM and it costs something
to implement it. It is costing the British television licensee money that
could be used to create original programming to instead be used to restrict
what they can do with their own devices. Why are they doing this again?

~~~
CJefferson
The (possible) cost of removing DRM, as I said, is that the BBC currently
makes money by selling the content it makes, both direct to consumers and the
TV and DVD companies in other countries. If the BBC released all its content
DRM-free, then this money might dry up.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
It seems like you're assuming contrary to evidence that the DRM is actually
effective.

------
acabal
I find it very surprising that the organization supposedly promoting the open
"web for all" is even considering baking in DRM handcuffs.

It seems so short-sighted. Copyright is just a bunch of laws this society
agrees on today. The web is not about today's laws, social mores, or profit
motives, but of connectivity, sharing, and freedom of information and
expression. When I see things like this even being considered, I sometimes
think that we don't deserve such freedom.

If we're going to start DRM'ing media, why not just DRM the entire web page
and be done with it? Why send HTML over the wire at all when we can send an
encrypted blob? That'd be the ideal world for the media companies--total end-
to-end secrecy, with users just being warm bodies with credit cards.

BBC, Netflix, MS, and--of all companies-- _Google_ should be ashamed to be
involved in this.

~~~
gph
>BBC, Netflix, MS, and--of all companies--Google should be ashamed to be
involved in this.

Why should any of them be ashamed? They all have copyrighted digital content
or at least have sites that host copyrighted content. They all clearly gain
from this.

I know whenever DRM is mentioned everyone likes to get out the pitchforks and
yell about "openness" and "freedom of information". But let's be honest, the
majority of media would not be made if it was going to be handed out for free.
Everyone seems to express this idealized utopian world where content is freely
distributed, everyone contributes, and we all live in electro-social bliss.
Sorry, until the Singularity occurs or the Age of Aquarius dawns that world
doesn't exist.

>Copyright is just a bunch of laws this society agrees on today. The web is
not about today's laws, social mores, or profit motives, but of connectivity,
sharing, and freedom of information and expression. When I see things like
this even being considered, I sometimes think that we don't deserve such
freedom.

I'm not going to try and defend copyright completely, it clearly needs a lot
of fixes to it, but this is just a bunch of random hogwash. Furthermore how
does some sites enabling DRM limit anyone else's connectivity, sharing, or
freedom of expression? Just because BBC starts limiting their iPlayer to
license holders doesn't mean I can't have my own iPlayer website with my own
open content that I share with everyone. You've created a rather weak strawman
argument here.

>If we're going to start DRM'ing media, why not just DRM the entire web page
and be done with it? Why send HTML over the wire at all when we can send an
encrypted blob?

What are you even trying to communicate here?? HTTPS is basically transmitting
an encrypted blob. The difference is that it (usually)contains HTML; which is
an open standard that everyone uses so that you only need one program(browser)
to interpret and display the blob from many sources(websites). Nothing about
enabling DRM will change this, it will only limit those who want their website
to be limited.

The only thing that is really questionable about this is whether W3C should be
using resources to help standardize/implement such a feature. Given that the
browsers will likely have to spend a lot of time/resources on making their
software compatible with the new standard is a bit unfair.

I'll just say these content provider companies are going to use DRM methods to
restrict use of their content one way or another. Whether it's through private
plugins like silverlight, flash, etc. or though an open standard, all of the
major browsers will have to be compatible to get users. I think it makes more
sense from a security and usability perspective to push it into an open
standard, but I can see both sides of the argument.

~~~
acabal
> Everyone seems to express this idealized utopian world where content is
> freely distributed, everyone contributes, and we all live in electro-social
> bliss.

The web should be designed as if we were targeting a utopia. The web as a
technology doesn't care about today's laws or profit motives, but burdening it
with them will only hinder what it can become in the future.

> Furthermore how does some sites enabling DRM limit anyone else's
> connectivity, sharing, or freedom of expression?

Baking in DRM software into what should be an open medium of exchange is a
first step. If the standard continues to evolve in that direction, the web
will become something much different, and I think worse, than what it is
today. W3C should be thinking about the future it wants to be in, not the
profit motives of today's entrenched media interests.

> HTTPS is basically transmitting an encrypted blob.

HTTPS protects communications from eavesdropping, but both parties are still
fully open to _each other_. DRM is not the same--it closes off the
communication from one of the parties in the "discussion" and puts one party
in total control. This is fundamentally different than being able to ensure
two parties can communicate without being overheard.

~~~
gph
>The web as a technology doesn't care about today's laws or profit motives.

The web as a technology doesn't care about anything because it isn't a human
being. Why are you anthropomorphising it and adding idealized moralities? If
you have certain morals and worldviews, go ahead and express them in the first
person as your own opinion. Because "the web" is a loose group of technologies
being developed and shared between a lot of different competing humans/groups
all with their own ideologies.

>Baking in DRM software into what should be an open medium of exchange is a
first step. If the standard continues to evolve in that direction, the web
will become something much different, and I think worse, than what it is
today.

So vague paranoia about the web "evolving" into something bad is why this
shouldn't be allowed? You have any specifics on what you think might next
happen? I mean once the media companies have DRM in HTML how else would they
need to change it? I would think they'd basically gotten all they need at that
point.

>HTTPS protects communications from eavesdropping, but both parties are still
fully open to each other.

That depends on what you mean by fully open. I can open an HTTPS connection to
gmail.com, I still need to provide some credentials for anything to happen.
gmail.com still has "total control". In fact in most any client/server HTTPS
connection one party is going to have what amounts to "total control". I don't
understand how DRM within HTML is fundamentally changing that situation. It's
just giving the server copy protection over the media it allows the client to
access. It eliminates the need for plugins such as silverlight/flash/etc. that
are already being used. It's not like these content companies hand out their
media unprotected as it stands.

~~~
acabal
> So vague paranoia about the web "evolving" into something bad is why this
> shouldn't be allowed?

We _should_ be paranoid. Media companies do not have our interests or the
interests of an open web at heart. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. Why
shouldn't they? The fact is that DRM benefits media companies almost
exclusively while seriously harming user freedom. That's not vague paranoia,
and imagining it evolving into something worse isn't an unfounded fear either.

> I can open an HTTPS connection to gmail.com, I still need to provide some
> credentials for anything to happen.

Do you mean logging in to Gmail? That has nothing to do with HTTPS. HTTPS
ensures that two parties can communicate in any way they wish without being
eavesdropped on. (And it also suggests trust, but that's a different issue and
the spec allows the same eavesdropping protection using self-signed
certificates.)

~~~
gph
>We should be paranoid. Media companies do not have our interests or the
interests of an open web at heart. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. Why
shouldn't they? The fact is that DRM benefits media companies almost
exclusively while seriously harming user freedom. That's not vague paranoia,
and imagining it evolving into something worse isn't an unfounded fear either.

It is vague paranoia. You're still just throwing out rhetoric without any
concrete reasons. It doesn't harm user freedom, I don't know how to express
this any clearer: "THEY'RE ALREADY DISTRIBUTING THROUGH DRM-ENABLED PLUGINS".
All this would do is standardize it and allow users to access DRM content from
website like hulu/netflix without needing two different private closed-source
plugins.

>Do you mean logging in to Gmail? That has nothing to do with HTTPS. HTTPS
ensures that two parties can communicate in any way they wish without being
eavesdropped on. (And it also suggests trust, but that's a different issue and
the spec allows the same eavesdropping protection using self-signed
certificates.)

>In fact in most any client/server HTTPS connection one party is going to have
what amounts to "total control". I don't understand how DRM within HTML is
fundamentally changing that situation. It's just giving the server copy
protection over the media it allows the client to access. It eliminates the
need for plugins such as silverlight/flash/etc. that are already being used.
It's not like these content companies hand out their media unprotected as it
stands.

You're still ignoring the meat of my argument. Lets just drop the whole HTTPS
analogy/credentials analogy. The rest of what I said is still valid.

~~~
rb12345
> It is vague paranoia. You're still just throwing out rhetoric without any
> concrete reasons. It doesn't harm user freedom, I don't know how to express
> this any clearer: "THEY'RE ALREADY DISTRIBUTING THROUGH DRM-ENABLED
> PLUGINS". All this would do is standardize it and allow users to access DRM
> content from website like hulu/netflix without needing two different private
> closed-source plugins.

The only way to get DRM to work is to require a closed-source browser. If you
implement your DRM in open-source browser code, that code will almost
certainly end up patched to produce decrypted/unprotected output and the patch
would then be redistributed.

Ultimately, you cannot combine technology that prevents the end user from
doing what they want with open-source software that attempts to guarantee such
rights.

~~~
gph
I agree that would be a problem, but I understand there would be a way to
implement the current proposal without requiring a browser to be closed
source.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5232033>

[https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-
med...](https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-
media/encrypted-media.html)

It's not a perfect method, it would require some additional potentially
closed-source OS-level software to be installed for the browser to interact
with. But people who don't want it don't have to get it, and the browser can
implement the standard without becoming closed-source.

~~~
rb12345
That's also true, but as you point out, still requires a closed-source or a
hardware DRM decoder to avoid kernel-level attacks. That would seem to rule
out Linux support even if Windows or OS X Firefox/Chrome can safely use it.

------
znowi
It's funny how all the rage is descending upon BBC while the 3 other companies
that back up the DRM proposal (Google, Microsoft and Netflix) entice zero
attention.

~~~
onemorepassword
The other companies are not publicly funded organisations. The BBC is supposed
to be acting in the public interests.

Besides, everybody already knows which side of the fence Google and Microsoft
are on, both in terms of self-interest and semi-political ideology.

------
lifeisstillgood
Is it just me or is the copyright debate the wrong problem to be working on ?

Around the world we have people trying to speak freely about matters of
justice, life and death, and they are being arrested, shot, mortared and
harassed.

TOR and similar are steps in the right direction, but mobile hardware is still
clearly identifiable and root is getting taken from people and given to the
network operators.

Solve the problems of those who cannot speak freely, give them tools and
anonymity and innovation around freedom once more and we shall see the
problems of copyright solved in new ways.

Solve for X.

~~~
jiggy2011
These problems are sort of related. If you build technology to allow people to
communicate anonymously then most likely that technology can also be used for
piracy.

So enforcement of systems that are less anonymous and offer less overall
control to the end user can be justified under the grounds of protecting
intellectual property rights.

If you can reform IP law in some way then perhaps you can remove roadblocks
towards the adoption of systems which are more open, more secure etc.

------
nnq
> the BBC is a public service broadcaster primarily funded by the licence fee
> paid by UK households

So DRM-ing BBC programmes would be very much alike, uhm... publishing publicly
funded research in journals that require paid subscriptions? ...ain't that
cute

~~~
oneandoneis2
Not exactly, because it'd be against their own rules - the BBC is actually
forbidden to encrypt its broadcasts. That's why their DVDs were always region
0 and bereft of copy-protection.

Things get a little more murky where we're talking about "downloads" as
opposed to "broadcasts" - both the BBC and theit regulator, Ofcom, have
confirmed on numerous occasions that it's mandatory that the BBC's "public
service content remains free to air i.e. unencrypted." (
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8352241.stm> ) but they've been allowed
to place limits on downloaded content such as iPlayer not letting you store
content forever.

I suspect this is less about "BBC wants DRM" and more about "BBC is under
massive pressure to use DRM"

Either way, I was disappointed when I first saw their submission to W3C
talking about their support for DRM'd media - I've always been gratified by
the way the BBC was the only big media corp. out there that wasn't chasing the
dream of total control over its content. If they're making a U-turn on that
I'll have to rethink my policy on paying the license fee.

(Before anyone steps up with the "it's mandatory" - it isn't if you don't own
& use a TV, and I'd feel no sorrow at all about getting rid of my TV)

~~~
wodow
To be clear, it's mandatory to pay for a "TV license" if you consume live
broadcasts in any way, regardless of the platform on which you do it [1].
Getting rid of your TV isn't enough if you keep your web browser tuned to BBC
One on www.bbc.co.uk.

[1] <http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/>

------
jpalomaki
So far it looks like the rights owners have chosen not to support standards if
the standards lack support for DRM functionality they feel are necessary for
protecting the content. Instead of HTML5 video we are still seeing
Silverlight, Flash and similar solutions.

~~~
theallan
This - I wish I could up vote multiple times. Fundamentally, distributors want
to be able to use DRM to protect their content. If open standards won't
provide a way to do that, there is no surprise that they turn to Silverlight
etc.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
What's the issue, then? They still find a way to distribute their content but
Web Standards aren't tainted. Seems like things are working as they should.

~~~
takluyver
The issue is that I need a proprietary plug-in with frequent security problems
(Flash) to watch the videos. It would be better if they could deliver their
content through a standardised protocol with more secure clients.

On the whole, that benefit isn't worth the downsides of adding DRM provisions
to an open standard. And of course, I'd prefer they could do without DRM at
all, but that still seems like a pipe dream.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>I'd love a youtube where I could pay a monthly subscription instead of
watching annoying ads. If DRM gave me that option it'd be great.

The pipe dream is working DRM. DRM is inherently a failure. Anything we can do
to make it less convenient or harder to use will only convince more content
providers not to use it -- especially when the inconveniences cause more
normal users to complain, which can only be a good thing.

Or to put it another way, why are you advocating polishing a turd so that it
appears less objectionable and can be more common? It needs to be less common.
Hollywood is not omnipotent. They are capable of being convinced to change
their ways. Witness music DRM. Witness the broadcast flag, which was defeated
but HD content continues to be distributed without it. This "we won't
distribute content without DRM" is just bloviating from pompous industry
executives who hope you won't call their bluff. They need to be called on it
far more often.

------
mdeslaur
I'm sorry, but I don't see how "GNU/Linux in Danger".

This is actually _good_ for Linux, as adding DRM to HTML will alleviate the
need to use closed-source technologies like Flash and Silverlight to stream
DRMed content. Getting rid of closed-source Flash and Silverlight is a _good_
thing.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
What is it that you imagine they'll be replaced with? There has to be a binary
blob somewhere whose purpose is to attempt to make the decryption and display
process opaque. That's what DRM is. I'm not sure what it matters whether you
call it Flash or something else.

------
rayiner
What kind of crappy article leads with a false dichotomy. DRM isn't any
different than a paywall. It doesn't make the internet suddenly not open to
allow sites to protect video content and for users to choose to view that
content or not.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Why add DRM? It is consistently bypassed. The BBC only needs it for iPlayer,
but DRM there is pointless since everything on iPlayer was broadcast prior on
unprotected terrestial TV.

Just use HTTPS, check referrers, prevent iframing and require passing a one-
use token, locked to IP address, embedded in the page. That won't protect you
from people stealing the content, sure. But at least it prevents bandwidth-
stealing.

~~~
DanBC
> Why add DRM?

The only reason: The people selling content to the BBC require that the BBC
has DRM measures in place.

~~~
anoncow
if bbc is a big enough customer for such content ( and i believe the bbc is),
it can dictate terms when buying such content. If it is not doing so, we can
only assume corruption and collusion as reasons.

~~~
seabee
Is the BBC big enough to fend off ITV, C5 or Sky who don't have to worry about
such issues? Remember Occam's Razor before jumping to conclusions about
corruption...

~~~
anoncow
you are right. Assuming corruption is unnecessary here, as business interests
fairly explain their behaviour.

------
jiggy2011
Surely even with baked in support at the operating system level such a thing
would be trivial to bypass?

Simply run a DRM compatible OS in a virtual machine, capture the video output
from the VM in the host machine and encode that?

~~~
L0j1k
Hence the rider about ensuring their ability to sue the people bypassing their
DRM.

~~~
tomjen3
Good luck suing a nameless ip in Russia.

------
andylei
This article (especially the headline) is honestly a joke.

The BBC wants encrypted media extensions in HTML5. That's DRM for stuff like
video.

The logical leap to GNU/Linux collapsing is astoundingly ridiculous.

~~~
cmsj
Boing Boing generally is ridiculous because Cory Doctorow ;)

~~~
pjscott
This is an article in Computerworld UK by Glyn Moody. How are Boing Boing or
Cory Doctorow relevant?

------
jfaucett
If google is behind this as the article states, it just shows their hypocrasy
behind their mantra of "supporting the open web". Given that companies with
w3c leverage are behind this proposal does anyone think it will get through?
Personally, I can't imagine anything worse for the future of the web than DRM.
It would be like forcibly going to back to a dark ages that never existed for
the web medium.

------
anoncow
Shame on you BBC. Technology cannot prevent IP theft. You can outlaw it and
hope fear will stop people from sharing. Or else you can find better ways to
monetize your IP. BBC should be working on putting that license money to
better use.

Our greed knows no bounds. People with money and power have the means to act
on their greed. Left in their hands, the internet will become as useful as the
tv is today. Anything that is not certified by the moneybags will become
illegal. Shame on you bbc for taking money from the same people whom you
intend to screw.

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
This isn't the BBC screwing people over. This is likely a constraint
introduced by licensing American (or foreign) exports for broadcast over here.
If the licensors want DRM as part of the agreement, then there's not much
choice left for the BBC unless they want to reduce the diversity of their
content.

~~~
drucken
That is not true, since there is a significant commercial part of the BBC and
since the parts of the DRM submissions quoted referenced reasons of control
over BBC identity (mixing streams etc.).

But lets say for the sake of argument it is true, then there would be no need
for the BBC to actively campaign on a part of a standard that they themselves
would not/could not have elected to use and would only be imposed on them by
others.

------
shadowmint
How could they possibly prevent a custom no-DRM fork of a browser?

Seems like a waste of time to me; it'll be about as effective as having a 'no
download' flag on images.

~~~
ferongr
The currentl proposal [1] mandates content decryption modules that are not
part of the browser but rather plugins akin to current NPAPI ones (Flash etc).
Those will most likely be platform-specific binaries. That makes operating
systems like GNU/Linux or BSD-likes unable to decrypt content depending
without the correct CDM.

[1] 1[https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-
med...](https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-
media/encrypted-media.html)

More reading

<https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=20944>
[http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/02/unethical-html-
video...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/02/unethical-html-video-copy-
protection-proposal-criticized-by-standards-stakeholders/)

------
static_typed
I can't believe how many apology-niks are on here trotting out the old merde
about how we _need_ DRM, and won't somebody please think of the rights-
holders. Here in the UK we pay the TV license fee. Now, granted most of the
output it funds is utter crap, but hey, we paid for it. There should be no
reason for DRM to be applied at all, but especially not if delivered via the
web.

If the standards wonks permit this, we really need to fork the standards, and
avoid this.

If the open web does not support your intended business model then go away and
change the model.

~~~
andrewflnr
The conversation has spread beyond the UK. I would even hazard a guess that a
majority of HNers are in the US, where there is no such fee and most content
producers are on their own.

