Hi Tom! Great to see you posting here :-)
On 13/03/2008, Tom Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I can't help but feel a bit sorry for the BBC here. Rock and hard > place. It's just removed DRM from the last two iPlayer releases (90% > of iPlayer users do not suffer from DRM) Do you think the BBC will keep the RMTP streams DRM-less when Gnash 0.9 comes out later this year? > That must have entailed some very hairy conversations with rights > holders (see reference to Writers Guild) given it's the first major TV > broadcaster to put hundred of non-DRM'd versions of its current TV > schedule on t'internet (I could be wrong here... but hulu et al are > all still DRM'd) I speculate that the conversations involved the BBC agreeing to use Apple's iPhone DRM as soon as it is ready. We haven't heard about this yet because Apple's PR department is smart enough to know that annoucing iPhone DRM around the time of the developer SDK would take some steam of the latter - but Apple is surely going to bring it out soon. > In time it'll be able to go back to rights holders and say "look, > piracy has not gone through the roof since we launched non-DRM > versions of iPlayer, meanwhile usage has gone through the roof (10x > increase), we're fighting a losing battle on the iPhone - this is an > arms race we can't win, but which delivers negative user benefit. > Let's just ditch the DRM for downloads too and see what happens" I'd like to believe in this but it seems like a fairy tale to me. Why didn't the BBC go to rights holders with this at the start? It looks more to me like the iPlayer team made a "sexy" decision and didn't see the "BBC Got Hacked!" Guardian headlines coming, no matter how 'smart' Rose's resume makes him look. The "official line" posted here and reported on El Reg is absolutely the Big Bad Corp not getting it. > One step at a time, innit. When will the first step happen? -- Regards, Dave Personal opinion only. - 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]/
