** This is all my personal point of view ** > I'm glad to see that Ian is recommending Free Software and that you took the time to check it out.
Nobody mentioned that it was Free Software. I suspect it was recommended by Ian and liked by Nic (and myself) because it's quick, its usable, and it just works. Do users really care about anything else? I suspect not. > people actually use their RSS reader on a daily basis RSS useage is pretty low - about 12% last count? RSS feeding media... 1% of users download a podcast on a typical day - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6175728.stm. It's the realm of geeks. > Conspicuously absent is Real Video, which the BBC favours I believe the main reason for this is that Real was the prevailing technology when the BBC started streaming all those years ago. It's a legacy issue, and the BBC has made huge investments in kit to stream at the quanities it does... over 30Gbps for the World Cup, I think? > formats can try to lock you out from your media using Digital Restrictions Management I'm sure someone here will explain to you that its not really "your" media, and most of the time nor is it the BBC's to give you. Many people have rights to material the BBC broadcasts - music (songwriters, artists, labels), talent and the production companies. All very, very complicated - there are big depts around here that purely deal with managing rights. Personally - I'd prefer to have DRMed content delivered to me (iPlayer), than no content at all (current situation). > the locks are easily broken Nobody is suggesting that any kind of DRM is uncrackable. Of course not - but its 'good enough' to satisify the rights holders. ** /This is all my personal point of view ** Jason On 17/12/06, Nic James Ferrier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > When is auntie going to be publishing feeds so I can see the headlines > from the beeb in democracyplayer? The BBC iPlayer is/was kinda similar to Democracy Player, except that people actually use Democracy on a daily basis, and occaisionally pull up the iPlayer when they need to. This is just the same as the way that people actually use their RSS reader on a daily basis, and occaisionally pull up a primitive website without an RSS feed to see its latest. So that's one reason for the BBC to dump their own-brand NIH-syndrome iPlayer and start publishing video feeds you can consume in Democracy or whatever player you like the most, just like they publish RSS feeds of the news stories. But there is a far more important reason the BBC should do this: it should respect our digital rights. Democracy Player is Free Software, which is means it is software that respects our ability to share and change all software. (Its license is at https://develop.participatoryculture.org/democracy/browser/trunk/tv/lice nse.txt and is explained http://www.gnu.org) Its not just applications though - there are Free Software media formats too, such as Ogg audio and Theora video. Despite the existance of technically superior Free Software media formats, many things are only available in proprietary formats, and where the master copies have been discarded, changing them into Free Software formats will reduce their quality. Today this isn't a problem; some formats have been 'reverse engineered' so that Democracy can play them - such as Microsoft Windows Media, Apple Quicktime and Adobe Flash Video. Conspicuously absent is Real Video, which the BBC favours. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html Tomorrow, there is a problem, though, and it will be a big one. Many media files in those formats cannot be played by Democracy or other Free Software video players (such as mplayer which powers Ian's Xbox Media Center.) because those formats can try to lock you out from your media using Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). This is a big problem despite the fact that the locks are easily broken, because it is illegal to unlock them. Its also illegal to make unlocking tools, and to tell people how to make those tools. In the USA this is through the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and in the UK this is through the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD). A norwegian boy of 15 was charged with "breaking into his own computer" before the EUCD was introduced, and the court at that point could throw it out as ridiculous. Today, a similar lawsuit might be less sensible. The BBC does not support Free Software media formats such as Theroa, and does turn on the locks in the proprietary media formats it does use. This is wrong. Unfortunately, the Backstage community appears uninterested in talking about Free Software media formats, and why they are important. (I don't know why this is.) Without BBC Backstage community support, BBC is unlikely to support Free Software, and so, Nic, you're unlikely to get BBC video in your Democracy Player any time soon. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
