Hi Andrew! Thanks for chipping in with this, it reflects very much what Tom Loosemore said in the Backstage DRM Podcast - that BBC DRM was a regrettable but neccessary evil, done only at the behest of the production companies who feed the BBC.
On 12/06/07, Andrew Bowden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
independent production companies, foreign broadcasters etc wish to commercially exploit the programmes they have made (and they are allowed to do this), and they wish to exploit them online as well as on cable and satellite channels, or foreign media. Restricting the availability of the BBC downloaded version allows them to do that. If a BBC downloaded version was available to all forever, it would destroy their commercial exploitation online. So to restrict the availability, you /currently/ need Windows DRM.
The worldwide public are non-commercially sharing everything that can be encoded digitally. The production companies are out of touch with this simple fact, and they need to know that the idea they can restrict the public availability of their copyrighted works is a flawed one. The BBC can play a role in helping them understand this; it is failing to do so. One way that I favor is to tell them to get on with trying to exploit their works online themselves, let them deal with the fiasco of trying to do DRM, themselves, and build up demand from the public for the BBC to provide works through the Internet with public notices that point the finger at the rights holders. Then, when the rights holders realise that DRM is a bad idea, the BBC can step in with a DemocracyPlayer/tvnanny.org/etc style solution and save the day with something truly marvelous.
I won't go any further into the "rights" and "wrongs" of those discususions. I just thought I'd explain why it is like it is so it is all out in the open.
I appreciate it! :-) -- Regards, Dave - 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/[email protected]/
