If you want to skip the rant there is some more technical stuff that does not depend on opinion at the bottom.
On 11/06/07, Richard Lockwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Oh look, a letter signed by students and other ne'er-do-wells.
So you where never a student then? Ah the uneducated why should we listen to such idiots?
"Me-me-me-me-me - I WANT IT, give it me for NOTHING!!!
I'm sorry I was under the impression I had to pay my TV license. But if you say this is free then it must be my mistake. How confusing that the TV licensing agency send threatening letters when I don't really have to pay a TV license as you say.
Then let me copy it and do what I want with it - let me make money off the back of it - FOR NOTHING!!!"
Who said making money off the back of it?. And what is wrong with me wanting to do something like watch it on my PC.
While DRM is not an ideal solution, the comments in that letter are frankly unhelpful, and in many cases, bollocks.
As are many of your comments.
1. "DRM doesn't work". Hmm... Well, yes. It will prevent most non-geek users making personal copies, but in the long term is unlikely to prevent determined large-scale piracy. OK. Give you that one.
Also the BBC is using a VERY STUPID DRM system. I hate to point this out but Software DRM is crackable. The only way to reduce the attacks is to reduce the reason to launch such attack. If I can do what I want with the content (in this case watch it on my PC) then why would I bother launching an attack on the system? Why was DVDCSS cracked? Because one guy wanted to watch DVDs on his Linux PC. Had they licensed the code he may never have bothered writing the crack. Another problem is the more widely deployed a DRM scheme the more incentive there is to attack it. The BBC would have got a better DRM scheme if they had implemented it themselves, it's not exactly difficult to do.
2. "DRM strips consumers of their rights" Eh? Private study, copies of reasonable length, blah blah blah... If you contact the BBC and ask nicely, they'll give you a copy on video or audio tape of pretty well any *BBC Owned* content from the last fifty years - it they've got it. My mate Tony got a copy of an episode of Crackerjack from 1979 that he was on. He asked, and they sent him a copy. DRM does, on the other hand, make an attempt to stop people copying the content on an industrial scale, and selling it on. (Whether this works is a moot point - see above)
I would point out it is not a "moot" point, it can be proven that software implemented DRM schemes on a general purpose machine can never be secure. Go look up how intel and AMD chips work. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not know anything about a computer. It is NOT to protect against industrial piracy. How does it stop copying on an industrial scale but not prevent legal copying? People who claim this ignore the fact that at the time the PC has the content the offence may not have been committed. AFAIK there is an education exemption in the copyright act. If a teacher burns a copy on CD to take to display on a class computer this may not be illegal (I am not a lawyer), if the person then gives that same CD to there mother (outside education) it would be illegal. How could a computer system ever know how the disc is going to be used. You expect to be able to predict the future? My god the DRM supporters really are that stupid!
3. "DRM directly violates the BBC Royal Charter"
I was uder the impression the BBC is forbidden for interfering in commercial markets by locking content to Windows XP it is doing just this. I think you'll find the trust agrees on this but was to weak to actually impose a time frame on the call for a cross platform solution. It did say there should be a platform agnostic approach. The BBC has shown no signs of doing this as the ONLY way to make the system agnostic is an openly defined specification. You can implement it on as many OSes as you like it's still limited to those OSes so it isn't agnostic. Only a specification is. Can the BBC give me a time frame for there required release of it's specification so I can begin development of a compatible implementation for platforms the BBC has not provided software for?
4. "DRM is a poor business decision" Maybe. Why not apply for a job at the BBC then? Maybe in the "Making Business Decisions" department. If you were so bloody clever you'd have advised BT not to use that piper logo, wouldn't you? But that wouldn't have allowed you to pirate all the DVDs you wanted and make money on the back of someone else's work, would it? And that's only finding holes in the title of this section. The actual content makes no sense - it's just repeating and rehashing rhetoric and bleating from open-sourcers about "Oh, the BBC isn't providing its copy in a format *I* can use. MEMEME!!! LISTEN TO MEEE!!!!"
It has an obligation to ALL license fee payers. There is no valid reason for the BBC to not use a published format. If you had taken 1 minute to ask anyone knowledgeable you would know that a secure system such as encryption is NOT compromised in anyway if the algorithm is known, thus there is no damage from using a published standardised format. Why have you not done so? The only reason I can think of is someone at the BBC has shares in Microsoft!
5. "The industry has ditched it". Really? What industry? "The Industry" "The Government" BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!!! Being sensible for a while, no, "the industry" hasn't "ditched" it. Apple hasn't ditched it, Microsoft hasn't ditched it, Napster hasn't ditched it. "...large media outlets will soon offer DRM-free content or already offer it" OK - they offer it. Or they *will* offer it soon. So... they're exploring alternatives to DRM. GOOD!!! They're being sensible, and - listen now - exploring alternatives to DRM which was a short termist, knee jerk reaction to the possibilities offered by cheap, quick and effective digital copying solutions. Rather than demanding that the whole system be immediately scrapped because a bunch of students (most of whom aren't actually license payers, being in Kuala Lumpar or Pigsknuckle, Arkansaidiao - which shoots down *that* argument) don't like it and want everything for free. (See the "ME ME ME ME MEEEEE!!!!!" notes above)
I pay the license fee I'll have you know! I do find it odd that it is run by some Boston organisation (Did Boston move over here?). DRM is being scrapped, it's just being scrapped without the approval of the content producers ;). Once data enters an untrusted machine you lose control of it, simple. HD-DVD copy protection is being scraped in that it is being removed from copies of films, admittedly the removal is being done by some bloke who goes by a forum nick name using a certain 32 bit number (I think there's a C in the hex representation).
Remember, the BBC does not have all the commercial and copyright rights to everything it shows. There has to be some kind of compromise, and we should all try to work towards a better solution, not a luddite "SMASH THE SYSTEM!" shout akin to that of Class War circa 1982. "Free" is never going to work. (See Lockwood Rants passim)
Luddite? You are the Luddite failing to embrace technology and drop knowingly broken systems that do damage to the computing industry. Have you seen some of the rubbish in Vista, rebooting the entire video subsystem because a line wandered off it's voltage a bit is not a good idea. Personally I don't care if you put DRM on it. Provided it is openly specified and freely implementable. Any secure algorithm is not compromised by the details of the algorithm being known. (why do you think that encryption algorithms generally only enter wide usage after they have been read by huge numbers of people?) Here is a few simple points: The BBC is publicly funded The BBC should server the Public The BBC is not supposed to interfere with commercial markets The BBC was told to produce a cross platform solution The BBC intentionally chose the most difficult solution to port. Using Windows Media Player is a bad move. Should have used something that runs on multiple systems, e.g. VLC. Or used a standard format that can be played on any system. The BBC is NOT breaking new technological ground here, all the things it is doing has been done long long before. Audio/Video coding, been done we have standards for it MPEG, Ogg Thoera or Dirac (you know the BBC format). Distribution of large files in a scalable manner, been done, Bittorent Encryption (can be used in DRM), we done that as well, AES, RC4 etc. Representation of structured data (can be used to represent restrictions fo DRM or lists of programs to download), XML. Structured display of text, graphics etc. XHTML, HTML. Server to Client links (useful for transferring program lists or doing key exchange), HTTP and TCP/IP Restriction Regions, implement server side, do it at the firewall level for maximum effect and security. Did I miss something? What further features did the BBC need? I am pretty sure they could also have been implemented. The BBC had the option of using proven openly published standards they didn't and no one hs EVER explained why, care to now? Before Richards email I had hoped the BBC would comply with it's regulators requests. Now I just hope they are prosecuted to the fullest extent under the law. I was considering reporting them for offences they have commit against me (violation of the Freedom Of Information act for one), I was going to let it rest. Now I shall pursue legal action! Andy -- First they ignore you then they laugh at you then they fight you then you win. - Mohandas Gandhi - 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/
