Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 13/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Rubbish, the BBC could have had their cake and eaten it just by threatening to tell the content providers to shove off. The rights holders want their material on the BBC, probably more than the BBC wants any particular piece of content. I suspect the BBC telling people to shove off, might just have some interesting results Yes, I think that would not be a good idea :-) But could the BBC ask them to join in, provide an easy way for them to experiement with free culture..? -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 08/02/07, Tim Thornton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 08/02/07, Dave Crossland wrote: On 08/02/07, Tim Thornton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Deterring the general public from blatant file-sharing. It fails at this purpose. I disagree. It fails at preventing all of the public from sharing files. By how much, at what cost? Very little, at a very dear cost, I'd say. Firstly, file sharing in itself. Most importantly, this is very unethical. Sharing is the basis of friendship, neccessary for community, and important for a good society. To divide the basis of friendship in the age of computer networks is deeply wrong. No publishing is better than restricted publishing. Sharing is good for society, but only when sharing things you have permission to. It is true that breaking agreements is not good. However, all iPod owners intuitively understand that agreements not to share are more bad than the act of breaking them, and is thus justified on a 'lesser of two evils' basis. Of course, not getting into an ethical dilemma is preferable to making a 'lesser of two evils' choice, which is where copyleft comes in to trump copyright. I suspect we will never agree with each other about the ownership of music or specific cultural output I'm not sure - I am not close minded...? Not sure what you're saying tbh. but I'm sure you can see my point if you think of a physical posession. Analogies between the physical and digital are almost always confusion. That's exactly the purpose of the term intellectual property - it implicitly carries an assumption that you can treat culture like physical property, and mixes up totally different laws that are wholly different in all aspects so anything you say about intellectual property is totally confusing. My position on music was made up when I considered how I would react if a piece of music I composed were to be used to promote a cause I disagreed with. If music belongs to the public domain, then I have no ability to control who can use my creations. If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise, we do not believe in it at all. Secondly, deterrents. For the general public, the deterrents do more harm than good because they cut into private use that is allowed in the law (or should be, cf Gowers). But isn't allowed as yet. ;) The law is not an authority on ethics; we do what is right, not what is permitted. Nonetheless, DRM can allow fair use. I am yet to see any evidence that DRM allows the same freedoms that are permitted in law - in all cases, it acts to create a kind of private copyright regime, where company policy replaces public policy and is even more restrictive. This is the concept behind Lessig's famous phrase, Code is law. I can download BBC shows transmitted through analogue radio broadcasts onto a VHS tape. I can keep the copy as long as I want, and copy it to my portable video player. I can download BBC shows transmitted through digital radio broadcasts onto a file in my computer. I can keep the copy as long as I want, and copy it to my portable video player. I can download BBC shows transmitted through the Internet onto a file in my computer, and my computer deletes it after 7 days, and I can't copy it to any other device. There is something deeply wrong here. This comes back to the ownership question again. If I own the IP in a file Why do you use the vague term IP when you really means copyright? It is gratuitous vagueness, which can only serve the ends of those who prefer unclear thinking. Confusing copyrights with trademarks impedes comprehension of either one. The basic idea of copyright is not like that of physical property rights. Copyright is an artificial incentive for the sake of public benefit. why shouldn't I be able to specify that you're only allowed it for a week? Certainly not. Ford has copyrights, trademarks and patents for all aspects of their cars. They don't get to sue you if you pimp them out in a way that doesn't suit the brand. They may like to. But they don't get to. One of the complaints I often hear is that music companies are not adapting their business models to take advantage of the Internet generation - and yet the subscription model (ie explicit music rental) can only really work when the right to play the song for a restricted time exists. Thinking that rental is an adaptation is bizarre. Renting is commercialised lending. If I buy a spade, I can lend the spade to my neighbour. If the spade manufacturer made it illegal to lend the spade, the world would see that as wrong of the manufacturer - evil even. (The same argument doesn't apply to cars, or guns, though - which is interesting.) File sharing is _not_ file lending. It is file _duplication_. When you lend, you take a loss. If I lend you my book, I can't read my book. If I need to refer to it badly, and you aren't reachable, I have to buy another book. Ease of duplication is an affordance
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 09/02/07, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: its deemed 'good enough' for the general public (the vast, vast majority of which just want to watch Eastenders/Dragons Den/whatever the next day). The vast, vast majority of the general public have no problems using the regular BBC website. But there is an accessible version. Why? It's a good argument - however using your logic then we shouldn't be providing bbc.co.uk if we can't cater for 100% of the audience. No, I don't think what I said extends like that. The BBC provides an accessible version because doing what is deemed 'good enough' for the vast vast majority is not enough. Maybe the vast vast majority won't want to keep the files around more than a few days. Maybe not. But it is inherently evil to make that decision for us, and restrict us from keeping copies of files for ourselves, if we want to. It is also evil to restrict us from redistributing those files. It seems that Windows Media DRM is deemed unsuitable for iPlayer by the board of trustees because it can only be used by 75% of the audience, and therefore they will fund a homebrew cross platform DRM system that will work with OS X and GNU/Linux users. This has totally missed the point that DRM is evil, by conflating evil with inaccessible. Truth is, bbc.co.uk doesn't cater for 100% of the audience - compromises are made to make the user experience better for the majority. We're talking about something more fundemental than UX design, I think :-) For example, the XHTML homepage launch the other day - I wasn't involved (someone around here will have been and will chime in), but I bet when it changed some users got a page without CSS, or some other problem. I also bet these users complained as bitterly as you are about DRM. However, we all recognise the benefits of XHTML move right? Crummy migrations happen, but that they and DRM might be subject to criticism is all they have in common. So, back to DRM and the all or nothing problem - compromises have to be made ... and some people will complain. But are those complaints valid? Or will they just be ignored? /accessiblity - looks like someone made a mistake. It happens. To equate this to Auntie doesn't care for minorities is a little silly. Yes, it was a facetious comment for which I apologies; I guess I forgot for a moment I was dealing with the BBC, and what I was seeing was a temporary glitch and not that the accessible version had just been forgotten about and fallen apart, as is often the case... -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 09/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The purpose of being good enough to satisfy the people that own the rights to the content - and therefore being able to release the content in this manner. You implicitly elevate the people that own the rights to the content above the public. This isn't cool. No it's not cool. However if you don't have rights holders who are happy, you would get nowt. What's better - a moral highground with nothing, or no moral highground but with everything? That is a fictitious choice, which misreprents the situation. They will not offer us everything. They will offer us some limited access under nasty conditions, with some small concession for neutralizing the opposition - and once the opposition's impetus is gone, they will withdraw it. As Frederick Douglass said, Power concedes nothing without a demand. Our moral high ground is the basis for our demand for freedom. If we agree to abandon that, in return for some token concession, that might be presented as a victory, but in the long term it would be surrender. I'd presume people here would say the former, whilst I suspect the majority of the general public would say the latter. The majority of the general public don't yet recognize there is a problem with DRM. We free culturalists do, and we are trying to end the problem. -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
Sharing is good for society, but only when sharing things you have permission to. It is true that breaking agreements is not good. However, all iPod owners intuitively understand that agreements not to share are more bad than the act of breaking them, and is thus justified on a 'lesser of two evils' basis. Really? Do you have empirical evidence about the conscience levels of iPod owners that the rest of aren't privy to Dave? I suspect we will never agree with each other about the ownership of music or specific cultural output I'm not sure - I am not close minded...? Not sure what you're saying tbh. but I'm sure you can see my point if you think of a physical posession. Analogies between the physical and digital are almost always confusion. Yes - hence your arguing of chairs as an example of something copyable a while ago. My position on music was made up when I considered how I would react if a piece of music I composed were to be used to promote a cause I disagreed with. If music belongs to the public domain, then I have no ability to control who can use my creations. If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise, we do not believe in it at all. Freedom of speech is wholly different from misquoting someone to further your own ends. One of the complaints I often hear is that music companies are not adapting their business models to take advantage of the Internet generation - and yet the subscription model (ie explicit music rental) can only really work when the right to play the song for a restricted time exists. Thinking that rental is an adaptation is bizarre. Renting is commercialised lending. Yes. And your point is? Music rental has been going on for years - have you never been a member of a music library? Pay a minimal fee to try music you might like - if you like it, go and buy it. Where's the problem there? And why is commercialised lending in general so bad? If I buy a car, and lend it to you for a month, you pay me a small fee for the convenience. You don't have to buy your own car, and I'm recompensed for the depreciation incurred by my car having an extra 2,000 miles on its odometer. Presumably you live in a squat, have never rented a home or rented out a room, and feel that councils who still provide affordable rental housing are evil. If I buy a spade, I can lend the spade to my neighbour. If the spade manufacturer made it illegal to lend the spade, the world would see that as wrong of the manufacturer - evil even. (The same argument doesn't apply to cars, or guns, though - which is interesting.) Some, mainly potentially dangerous items require you to have a license before you can use them. There are restrictions on who you lend them to - do you want to live in a world where I can legally borrow a gun and come round your house with it? File sharing is _not_ file lending. It is file _duplication_. When you lend, you take a loss. If I lend you my book, I can't read my book. If I need to refer to it badly, and you aren't reachable, I have to buy another book. Ease of duplication is an affordance of the medium. Why are rights holders so against this? (In the case of music, they distribute digital audio on a handy disc with the same affordances. Why don't they stop this?) When that handy disc was originally released, the technology to duplicate it wasn't readily available to the general public... In much the same way that the easy copying of vinyl to cassette tape wasn't around at the invention of the vinyl record. I realize that this isn't strictly relevant to the copyright argument, but it's worth bearing in mind. This affordance is a great improvement over lending, since we don't take that loss, and makes our lives more enjoyable. Yes, this kills off the commercialised version of lending, renting. So be it - there are plenty of other business models. So you keep saying. You've yet to describe a workable one for music... Perhaps the term sharing implies a similarity to physical property more than alternatives (copying, duplication, diffusion, publishing, broadcasting, etc) but I generally use this term as it highlights the psycho-social value of digital duplication: lending a spade is an act of friendship, and duplicating a digital file is today's version of that. Rubbish. Duplication is duplication, it's not a more convenient form of lending. As you described above, lending involves some physical inconvenience if you can't use the item you've lent out. What you're describing is giving. As with the spade, it would be wrong to restrict that. The primary aim is to reduce the number of sharers (cf sharees) This is an evil idea: Restricting us from duplicating files is destroying the basis of friendship, and cannot be excused. You keep using emotive terms here – evil, destroying the basis of friendship in order to get your wholly unworkable argument across. Just because I'm not supposed to
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 13/02/07, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Your argument is that all music should be utterly free. Which, while a nice idea in Davetopia, or wherever you live, is completely unworkable. I suspect that he would like all music to be free (libre), not free (gratis), and why would it be unworkable? Study Finds P2P Has No Effect on Legal Music Sales: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/13/1332214 No - he was arguing that it should be freely distributable by anyone with no restrictions. Making as many copies as you like and then - this is the crucial part - giving it to other people for no money. That's free (gratis). And I quite agree about P2P currently having negligible effect on legal sales. That's because P2P sharing of copyright music is still illegal, and most users don't have the software to do it. As soon as it becomes legal, an easy to use version of some P2P s/w gets bundled with every new Dell HP PC and everyone's using it - and very few people actually need to buy music. P2P sharing then becomes a mass market activity, and not (as is my personal experience) the preserve of geeks, teenagers (not huge buyers of CDs anyway) and music afficianados wanting rare recordings that often can't be got hold of any other way. Cheers, Rich. - 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/
[backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backs tage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
The purpose of being good enough to satisfy the people that own the rights to the content - and therefore being able to release the content in this manner. I also forgot to say: You implicitly elevate the people that own the rights to the content above the public. This isn't cool. No it's not cool. However if you don't have rights holders who are happy, you would get nowt. What's better - a moral highground with nothing, or no moral highground but with everything?I'd presume people here would say the former, whilst I suspect the majority of the general public would say the latter. The pages of Broadcast magazine are full of articles about the trade negotiations between the BBC/ITV/C4 and PACT - the organisation which represents independent television. It's unfortunate therefore that Broadcast's articles are subscription only, as it would be interesting to put the URLs here so that people can get a vague idea of the process that led us to where we are, and how much PACT want to protect the content created by its members. It would add a different perspective to this discussion which - really - is going round in circles now. winmail.dat
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
No it's not cool. However if you don't have rights holders who are happy, you would get nowt. What's better - a moral highground with nothing, or no moral highground but with everything?I'd presume people here would say the former, whilst I suspect the majority of the general public would say the latter. Rubbish, the BBC could have had their cake and eaten it just by threatening to tell the content providers to shove off. The rights holders want their material on the BBC, probably more than the BBC wants any particular piece of content. If the BBC had said we'll do this DRM free, or we won't even broadcast it the BBC would have got DRM free. They wouldn't have ended up with nothing. rights holders = every active and retired actor in the country, every composer in the country, every professional musician in the country, every freelance presenter, every freelance cameraman, every freelance director, every photo stills library, every independent TV company (to whom we're obliged by our charter to commission 25% of tv), every record label, football clubs, the estate of Sir Roy Plumley etc etc etc Telling them all to shove off is not a realistic option right now. See the para from Government's BBC Charter Review Green Paper at the bottom of this post to understand this political reality. Now, in the long term I'm convinced that acquiring the rights to make content available for re-use in perpetuity is a public value maximising strategy for anyone engaged in public media in a wholly networked environment. As does OFCOM, as can be seen by their proposing a commercial, attribution, sharealike Creative Commons licence for their putative 2012 Public Service Publisher (PSP) concept. But it's far from obvious that this is the right approach *now*. 2012 is a generation away. Even ignoring the political reality, implementing such a 'shove off' strategy today isn't necessarily the right thing to do today. Buying all rights, globally, in perpetuity means each unit of stuff would cost (lots) more than we pay for UK broadcast rights. Lots more. So the BBC would have to make far less stuff. And cos it makes less, it'd be harder to make sufficiently diverse range of stuff so that we offer stuff of value to *everyone* in the UK - including, BTW, the 40% of people in the UK who've never been on the internet, and the 97% who've never watched TV on the net. Seriously, the best way to have an impact on this debate is to respond to OFCOM's PSP discussion document A new approach to public service content in the digital media age . http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/pspnewapproach/ The consultation on the above discussion doc is open to anyone, and closes on 23rd March. I *highly* recommend those of you who care about this issue read about the Public Service Publisher, and respond in as much detail as you can manage to OFCOM's request for feedback on their ideas. The views of an informed digitally-savvy bunch such as those on the backstage list is utterly vital, and will be hugely welcomed. Welcome to the world of policy. The BBC really has lived these arguments over the past five or six years (ideas for a BBC Public Licence were all over the web and some newspapers back in 2002 http://web.archive.org/web/20021220040855/http://azeem.azhar.co.uk/archives/000178.html ) We didn't follow the DRM'd iPlayer strategy lightly. Today, in Feb 2007, it's DRM or nowt. So please put the 'DRM is evil' placards down for a moment. We know. http://www.lllj.net/blog/archives/2006/01/06/how-can-drm-be-good/#comment-7373 Start working to change UK public policy instead. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/pspnewapproach/ Bests -Tom * Fom http://www.bbccharterreview.org.uk/pdf_documents/bbc_cr_greenpaper.pdf The BBC said in Building Public Value - 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/
Re: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 2/1/07, Stephen Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What needs to be developed is new distribution systems, not excuses for old methods, nor seeing any form of global market as a problem. If content is available at a fair price globally and simultaneously, the advertising markets and audiences should greatly expand. Fair price - nice phrase, except we need to state who it's fair to. For example - the music companies want internet broadcasters to pay the equivalent of 0.1p per track per listener to play a song on interactive internet radio (a service like the US's Pandora, for example). That means that, typically, an internet radio station will pay 1.3p an hour per listener (if they play 13 songs an hour). All fine so far; and it appears, at first glance, quite fair. But after 30 years of commercial broadcast radio in this country, experience appears to suggest that we can expect an equivalent revenue of 2p per listener per hour. Further, broadcasting interactive internet radio isn't cheap: it demands unicast streams (which currently can cost more than 1p per listener per hour in bandwidth charges); and that's before we factor in the cost of staff for the station, and the fact that a radio station which reaches a few thousand people isn't even going to get on the advertising orders when compared with stations with many millions of listeners. So, as it currently stands, the 'fair price' ends up meaning that the costs to run an internet radio station far outweigh any possible revenue from it. Yet the content owners clearly believe that the rights costs are fair (unless you're claiming that the record companies want to stop ANY broadcasting on the internet). The 'global' issue is one here, too. Webcaster rates in the US are very different, and in some areas of the world, there are no rates at all. Currently, internet radio is a global phenomenon; but I'm unaware of any time where the UK record companies have earnt money from broadcasts emanating from non-UK places on the internet. I focus mainly on visual arts, TV and movies, as due to product placement and adverts, these offer the most viable free distribution options with current methods of funding. I think the internet should be looked upon as a place to expand the free to air television market, with funding provided solely through site and media advertising. I do not view this as wishful thinking, and do not think that bittorrent downloading precludes this. All the above problems currently occur without any DRM at all: precisely the kind of environment you're looking for - and, as you can hopefully see, it's anything BUT viable. Should content owners suggest similarly 'fair' pricing for broadcasters for on-demand content to place on BitTorrent, then it simply won't happen. However, a system like Joost - which uses Content Restriction And Protection to a certain degree, since you can only stream not download, has more of a chance, potentially. I do realise who you work for, but don't think that is hugely relevant to the debate. As mentioned in my last email, I'm not saying that people like you do not exist in commercial companies, merely that research is seen more as an interesting aside and future possibilities, as opposed to something that can be realised within the next year or so. You didn't say that at all. What you actually said was that media institutions were not forward-looking and had nobody with any say who understood new technologies - and who I work for and who funds this mailing list is highly relevant to that, since it shows that you're, to put it bluntly, wrong. To claim that nobody within the media is looking to the future is ever-so-slightly insulting, you know. In fact, I challenge you to a fight. Outside, now. -- http://james.cridland.net/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And yet it's still used... Doesn't that say something? It says that record execs are stupid, but we all knew that already. I was going more for a it might be broken by some, but it's good enough for 'purpose'. And what is that purpose, exactely? -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage ] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And yet it's still used... Doesn't that say something? It says that record execs are stupid, but we all knew that already. I was going more for a it might be broken by some, but it's good enough for 'purpose'. And what is that purpose, exactely? Deterring the general public from blatant file-sharing. Yes, it's beatable, but there are hoops to jump through before that file you've just download can be usefully shared, which the majority won't bother with. It's a first step. Security is almost never a simple choice between absolute protection or none. Tim -- IMPORTANT NOTICE: The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential and may also be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to any other person, use it for any purpose, or store or copy the information in any medium. Thank you. - 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/
[backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backs tage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
The purpose of being good enough to satisfy the people that own the rights to the content - and therefore being able to release the content in this manner. J -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Crossland Sent: 08 February 2007 16:18 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents) On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And yet it's still used... Doesn't that say something? It says that record execs are stupid, but we all knew that already. I was going more for a it might be broken by some, but it's good enough for 'purpose'. And what is that purpose, exactely? -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - 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/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 08/02/07, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The purpose of being good enough to satisfy the people that own the rights to the content - and therefore being able to release the content in this manner. Satisfy them to what end? The current arrangement temporarily satisfies media execs at the expense of the general public. Besides, the BBC's job isn't t satisfy Media execs, it's to satisfy licence fee payers, and pouring money down a DRM drain won't satisfy anyone. It won't satisfy us because of the DRM, when thee DRM is cracked the media execs will cease being satisfied, and when the Daily mail prints BBCs computer code hacked as its headline, the government will not feel particularly satisfied either. Remind me again of the point of DRM at the BBC, to me it seems as though the point is to find a way of wasting licence fee payers money, so Auntie can claim to be at the cutting edge of technology, whilst actually going backwards.
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 08/02/07, Tim Thornton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And yet it's still used... Doesn't that say something? It says that record execs are stupid, but we all knew that already. I was going more for a it might be broken by some, but it's good enough for 'purpose'. And what is that purpose, exactely? Deterring the general public from blatant file-sharing. It fails at this purpose. Firstly, file sharing in itself. Most importantly, this is very unethical. Sharing is the basis of friendship, neccessary for community, and important for a good society. To divide the basis of friendship in the age of computer networks is deeply wrong. No publishing is better than restricted publishing. Secondly, deterrents. For the general public, the deterrents do more harm than good because they cut into private use that is allowed in the law (or should be, cf Gowers). I can download BBC shows transmitted through analogue radio broadcasts onto a VHS tape. I can keep the copy as long as I want, and copy it to my portable video player. I can download BBC shows transmitted through digital radio broadcasts onto a file in my computer. I can keep the copy as long as I want, and copy it to my portable video player. I can download BBC shows transmitted through the Internet onto a file in my computer, and my computer deletes it after 7 days, and I can't copy it to any other device. There is something deeply wrong here. Note that given the above situation, anyone who wants to share BBC shows can just download their copy some other way - just as you can still go buy CDs in shops and share them all you want. DRM is already purposeless if works are available in non-DRM formats anyway. Thirdly, 'blatant.' I've heard BBC employees say, speaking for themselves, that they were very suprised that even though Johnny Public is signed up with his full name and postcode and static IP and such, he will blatantly file share BBC stuff anyway. Since we intuitively understand that sharing is good, deterring us general public from file-sharing is impossible, and we will continue to be brazen about this. Yes, it's beatable, but there are hoops to jump through before that file you've just download can be usefully shared, which the majority won't bother with. This is a very naieve view of how Internet society works. To convert copy-restricted data into copy-enabled data, there may be many hoops to jump through. For the first person, there will be many many hoops. For the second, there will be less hoops. Eventually, the hoop is download this program and drag and drop your restricted data onto it. The hoops can always be jumped, and collapsed to this single one. This is not an 'implementation problem' - if it was, software program proprietors would have implemented it 20 years ago. Say that there are a few hoops though, so the majority won't bother. For the minority who do jump the hoops, the copy-enabled data can be shared. How many hoops do the recipients of the copy-enabled data have to jump? Zero. Its often said that any simpleton can jump out of iTunes DRM using iTunes, by burning off all their iTMS music onto CDs and re-ripping them. It would take a very retarded simpleton to actually do this, because the far easier and faster thing is to just hit up Limewire or ThePirateBay or whereever and get the copy-enabled versions. It's a first step. Security is almost never a simple choice between absolute protection or none. Security is usually a charade, and security experts are usually charlatans :-) -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 08/02/07, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was going more for a it might be broken by some, but it's good enough for 'purpose'. And what is that purpose, exactely? The purpose of being good enough to satisfy the people that own the rights to the content Satisfy the rights holders about what? That their files will not be shared? This is daft. The files will be shared. Satisfy the rights holders that they will not lose out on 'potentialdownload sales'? Potential sales are a mirage, moronic wishfulthinking. If I stand on Oxford street with a sausage frying stand and 500 hotdogs, and I say I want £100 a hot dog, I have potential sales of£50,000 every day! Not. Consider Sony. 10 years ago, they could've taken music file sharing asa loss leader on selling expensive music playing gadgets, andleveraged the success of portable music players to sell a lot moreVaios. This is 2001 vintage Apple - with a glib 'don't steal music'tagline that subcommunicated Here is a perfect music stealing device,kids!, they leveraged iPods to sell Macs. Why didn't Sony go this way? I imagine their spreadsheets showed that,while profitable, this wouldn't be _as_ profitable as getting paideach time a music file is downloaded could be. Moronic wishful thinking is their business blunder, though. There something else that tempted them to act like morons too, Ishould add. When music went from LP to CD, or when film went from VHSto DVD, the costs involved dropped steeply. Pressing costs were lower,smaller boxes meant shipping and storage costs were lower, and therange of stock on shelves was higher. But the till price remained thesame. Right holders got away with this swindle, and think they canpull it off with the switch to digital. Note that to buy a whole albumon iTunes Music Store costs about the same as to buy the CD. (ZapMail tells a similar tale - http://www.shirky.com/writings/zapmail.html :-) The BBC should quit being timid, pony up, and present the case torights holders that DRM-free publishing of works on the Internet willincrease their bottom line. Part of that would be radically informingthe British public that while file sharing is encouraged, so isexchanging cash for value. This could be encouraging sales of boxed copies, or allowing people topay micro payment tip jar style. The millions the BBC is thinking ofspending on DRM for GNU/Linux could be much much better spend onsome decent artist-friendly propaganda and a micro payments systemthat _works_. Imagine that every time you read, listen or watch a work, you see abox on the side of the screen: Enjoy this? Click to send a pound tothe writer/band/production co/etc. If you like the work you will sendthat pound, sometimes. It's only a pound. It's more than the authors are likely to get if youbuy the boxed version, and much less than the boxed version costs you.Its so little that it's not going to discourage you. You'd probablyget into the habit of paying a pound a couple of times a week.Especially if the BBC mounted a massive propaganda campaign to makepeople aware that it really did matter to send a pound. People are basically honest, not cheapskates, and are prepared toreward things they value. Being against banning sharing is not being against paying authors, butthose who conflate the two reveal something about themselves: Theywould not pay authors ifthey could. Businesses would indeed not pay authors if they could finda way of doing it, and many people dispense with all ethics for a fatsalary. And if micro payments sounds like a far-out way to monetise things, considerhttp://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/02/07/what-should-the-music-biz-do-next/ The BBC could turn its content into a pure efficient marketplacewith perfect visibility - a stock exchange. Think of the secondarymarket opportunities - derivatives, put options, short-selling,arbitrage... :-) and therefore being able to release the content in this manner. Releasing the works in this manner is harmful, since the works areless useful than taping to VHS, and therefore shouldn't be released atall. The potential for doing something different to business broadcastersis immense, and the whole point of the BBC in the first place. -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage ] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias?? ? Click and Torrents)
Hi Dave On 08/02/07, Dave Crossland wrote: On 08/02/07, Tim Thornton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Deterring the general public from blatant file-sharing. It fails at this purpose. I disagree. It fails at preventing all of the public from sharing files. Firstly, file sharing in itself. Most importantly, this is very unethical. Sharing is the basis of friendship, neccessary for community, and important for a good society. To divide the basis of friendship in the age of computer networks is deeply wrong. No publishing is better than restricted publishing. Sharing is good for society, but only when sharing things you have permission to. I suspect we will never agree with each other about the ownership of music or specific cultural output, but I'm sure you can see my point if you think of a physical posession. My position on music was made up when I considered how I would react if a piece of music I composed were to be used to promote a cause I disagreed with. If music belongs to the public domain, then I have no ability to control who can use my creations. Secondly, deterrents. For the general public, the deterrents do more harm than good because they cut into private use that is allowed in the law (or should be, cf Gowers). But isn't allowed as yet. ;) Nonetheless, DRM can allow fair use. I can download BBC shows transmitted through analogue radio broadcasts onto a VHS tape. I can keep the copy as long as I want, and copy it to my portable video player. I can download BBC shows transmitted through digital radio broadcasts onto a file in my computer. I can keep the copy as long as I want, and copy it to my portable video player. I can download BBC shows transmitted through the Internet onto a file in my computer, and my computer deletes it after 7 days, and I can't copy it to any other device. There is something deeply wrong here. This comes back to the ownership question again. If I own the IP in a file, why shouldn't I be able to specify that you're only allowed it for a week? One of the complaints I often hear is that music companies are not adapting their business models to take advantage of the Internet generation - and yet the subscription model (ie explicit music rental) can only really work when the right to play the song for a restricted time exists. To convert copy-restricted data into copy-enabled data, there may be many hoops to jump through. For the first person, there will be many many hoops. For the second, there will be less hoops. Eventually, the hoop is download this program and drag and drop your restricted data onto it. The hoops can always be jumped, and collapsed to this single one. This is not an 'implementation problem' - if it was, software program proprietors would have implemented it 20 years ago. No, this /is/ an implementation problem, and can be overcome with a trusted hardware element on the platform. At that stage, the hoop will be more than simply running some code. Say that there are a few hoops though, so the majority won't bother. For the minority who do jump the hoops, the copy-enabled data can be shared. How many hoops do the recipients of the copy-enabled data have to jump? Zero. The primary aim is to reduce the number of sharers (cf sharees) It's a first step. Security is almost never a simple choice between absolute protection or none. Security is usually a charade, and security experts are usually charlatans :-) :) I spend a lot of time with security experts. A few are indeed charlatans. Most are scarily clever! -- IMPORTANT NOTICE: The contents of this email and any attachments are confidential and may also be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to any other person, use it for any purpose, or store or copy the information in any medium. Thank you. - 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/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It will be interesting in a few years time once a few MP3 players have died, and people have had chance to lose their entire music collection in spectacular fashion due to hard disk failures and so on. This will only be a problem for people who have been tricked into using DRM files, since non-DRM files can be easily backed up. -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 06/02/07, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And yet it's still used... Doesn't that say something? It says that record execs are stupid, but we all knew that already.
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
It depends what you mean by failed Fairplay (Apple's DRM) is circumvented by simply burning your tracks to CD, then ripping to MP3. I'd count that as a failed DRM mechanism, as it's essentially useless. If the BBC implements DRM that's as good as Fairplay, I'll be happy (as long as they don't spend to much of my licence fee on it). I'm sure (well not really, but that's a different debate) HD-DVD and\or Blu-Ray will make millions too, but I'd say that their DRM has failed already too. On 05/02/07, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is all my personal opinion. withdrew DRM, since it totally failed, like it always will iTunes Music Store (solely selling DRMed content?) appears to be doing pretty well... over 2bn songs, 50m TV episodes and 1.3m films sold [1]. It turned over around $1.7bn last financial year [2]. Doesn't make it right, of course, but it's hardly failed. J [1] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/01/09itunes.html [2] http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/10/107357/reports/10K_FY2006.pdf- they don't breakdown the revenue far enough, but its about $1.7 to $1.8bn I'd reckon. - 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/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 05/02/07, David Wood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.bleep.com do FLAC FLAC is Free Lossless Audio Compression, a great free software audio format. To be clear, I am not against people charging money for distributing music; I am against people distributing music in proprietary formats, and restricting me from redistributing music. -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 02/02/07, J.P.Knight [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What might be a fair price in, say, Russia, might be ridiculously cheap here and unbearaby expensive in Vietnam. Current example: www.allofmp3.com is a licensed mp3 downloads business - licensed in Russia - that is ridiculously cheap compared to the british high street or even locally licensed mp3 download businesses, and unbearaby expensive to anyone grown up with file sharing, be they in Vietnam or anywhere else. As a basis of comparison, a typical four-minute, 128 kbit/s song downloaded from the iTunes Music Store would cost $0.99, whereas this same song at the same bitrate would cost $0.12 to download at AllofMP3.com - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_of_mp3 AllofMp3 is especially important because they tried, tried, tried, and withdrew DRM, since it totally failed, like it always will - and in December 2006 the RIAA sued them for more than Russia's entire GDP. -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] RE: [backstage] Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage ] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
Brian Butterworth wrote: It permits you, as you keep quoting it, to make a recording of a broadcast to let you view or listen to it at a more convenient time (timeshifting); it does *not* let you make copies of that recording (sharing). As I said, and you ignored, above. It's not in the copy of the Act that I am reading. In fact it uses the actual phrase for the purpose of being placed in an archive. The Act actually says for the purpose of being placed in an archive *maintained by a designated body*. And a designated body is defined by Statutory Instrument as: The British Film Institute The British Library The Music Performance Research Centre The Scottish Film Council National Library of Wales British Medical Association British Music Information Centre Imperial War Museum (according to the latest SI I can find, dated 1993). Yes, I know that. The point being was of that the law is clear enough to distingush between the idea of taking a copy for private use to watch at a more convienient time and the idea of the intent of keeping it forever. Whilst we are at it, the way that the MPEG-2 system works REQUIRES that the data is held in a memory buffer, because of the way that the temporal compression works, so it's very easy to argue that digital transmission is a store-and-forward system and would be impossible (and illegal by your logic) to use without many copies being made. Transient copies such as you refer to are covered by The Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003, which added this to the 1988 Act: Copyright in a literary work, other than a computer program or a database, or in a dramatic, musical or artistic work, the typographical arrangement of a published edition, a sound recording or a film, is not infringed by the making of a temporary copy which is transient or incidental, which is an integral and essential part of a technological process and the sole purpose of which is to enable - (a) a transmission of the work in a network between third parties by an intermediary; or (b) a lawful use of the work; and which has no independent economic significance.. Quite clear, really. :) not infringed by the making of a temporary copy which is transient or incidental sounds like a BitTorrent to me. -- ATB, Matthew | http://www.dracos.co.uk/ - 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/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.17.17/661 - Release Date: 30/01/2007 23:30 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.17.17/661 - Release Date: 30/01/2007 23:30 - 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/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 1/30/07, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Metaphors that compare digital data to physical objects are almost always confusion. Agreed. Stealing is stealing, copying is copying. Stealing is not copying. Not agreed. But then, you might be confusing physical objects with data. (!) If you make furniture, the fact that furniture-duplication wands are invented does not give you the right to restrict people from duplicating chairs. No, but I should have the rights to restrict people from duplicating MY chairs. -- http://james.cridland.net/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 31/01/07, James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/30/07, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Metaphors that compare digital data to physical objects are almost always confusion. Agreed. :-) Stealing is stealing, copying is copying. Stealing is not copying. Not agreed. But then, you might be confusing physical objects with data. (!) Do explain :-) If you make furniture, the fact that furniture-duplication wands are invented does not give you the right to restrict people from duplicating chairs. No, but I should have the rights to restrict people from duplicating MY chairs. I'm sorry I wasn't clear, because that's what I meant. Restated: If you make furniture, the fact that furniture-duplication wands are invented does not give you the right to restrict people from duplicating the chairs you made. Restricing commercial duplication might be okay, but not non-commercial in-the-public-view duplication, and certainly not private between-friends duplication. -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 1/31/07, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you make furniture, the fact that furniture-duplication wands are invented does not give you the right to restrict people from duplicating chairs. No, but I should have the rights to restrict people from duplicating MY chairs. I'm sorry I wasn't clear, because that's what I meant. Restated: If you make furniture, the fact that furniture-duplication wands are invented does not give you the right to restrict people from duplicating the chairs you made. Restricing commercial duplication might be okay, but not non-commercial in-the-public-view duplication, and certainly not private between-friends duplication. Don't agree. No duplication is truly non-commercial; every act of duplication still results in the loss of a potential sale (assuming that I am selling these chairs). Given that, I am well within my rights to, if I choose, wish to prevent duplication - whether it's private-between-friends, or private-between-anyone on the internet, or anything else. If you don't like that, you don't have to buy my chairs! -- http://james.cridland.net/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 1/31/07, Josh at GoUK.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you make furniture, the fact that furniture-duplication wands are invented does not give you the right to restrict people from duplicating chairs. No, but I should have the rights to restrict people from duplicating MY chairs. That makes no sense. No chair is unique. They all follow a fundamental design: to provide a place to sit. YOUR chair will be a copy or a variation of a chair that has gone before it. You're not a god of furniture: creating something out of nothing: you're just another twiddler in a long line of furniture twiddlers. You may not have slavishly copied another designer's design, but you will (inadvertently) have copied parts of someone else's design. Yes - and here's the difference. If I create something, I am (more than likely) using some previous ideas, but I am creating something new. If I mash up Angel of Death by Slayer with Santa Was Seen Flying Over Soviet Airspace by Philistines Jr, I'm creating something new. If I buy the Slayer Reign In Blood album, copy it onto 20 blank CDs and give those copies away to my friends, I'm stealing. If I take those CDs and leave one in each room of my houses scattered around the globe, it's personal use. It also makes me a cheapskate. :-) If you have to get paid over and over again for your chair, then why shouldn't you pay over and over again the man who made the glue for your chair, or the wood logger who cut the tree to make your chair, or the farmer who planted the tree, or the worm who dug the earth around the tree enriching the earth and allowing the water to reach the roots? You can go on forever: no one thing is created by one person. The glue man, the logger etc - I do. Because it's a different chair each time and I have to buy more glue and wood. If a singer writes a song that's sold on CD, should he pay the person who invented the CD in the first place? No - but he pays for the blank CDs, a proportion of that cost covering the various licenses involved in the technology. Should we all, every day, pay Tim Berners-Lee a fee for inventing the internet? Should Tim pay his mum for giving him life so he could go on to create the internet? It is just ridiculous for one person or set of people to say that they are the creator of something and then hold sway over it … if they have rights, then so does everyone else along the chain who allowed that final thing to be produced. Musicians couldn't sell their music today via the net without the work of generations of scientists and IT wizards ….. the scientists created/produced a way for the musicians to distribute their work, and so the scientists are due a huge cut of everything the musicians make. And, until recently, the scientists creating those technologies were employed by EMI et al, who paid them a wage for their work. And EMI made good money out of sponsoring (by way of wages) the development of those technologies. If producers don't want people to duplicate things, then they shouldn't put them out in the public arena in the first place. If you stop people duplicating things, then where would the world be: we'd stop people duplicating ideas, thoughts, reason, sense, compassion, love, whatever. Everything is copied and changed – from biology to IT – fundamental change is driven by incremental improvements. If producers don't want their work duplicated, then they should keep it to themselves. If that means they don't produce, then fine – they can do something else with their lives. The problem here is where do you draw the line. Sharing ideas, yes, sharing specifics, no. Complete freedom to copy means eventual stagnation. Your argument essentially says that no-one should ever benefit from their work/creativity. We all duplicate something: we repeat ideas, we come out with catchphrases, we retell jokes, we pay homage in the things we create to the things that have gone before us. Nothing is ever original. Should Matt Lucas get a fee every time someone quips I'm the only gay in the village? Should Bono get paid every time someone mentions Bloody Sunday? Just because something is in paper, digital medium, fabric, etc it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be copied. OK, an example. My band has a 3 song CD out. While we're not out to make money on it (we actually lose money on each CD sold at £2, and the tracks are available as MP3s on the website anyway), if you bought a copy off me, duplicated the packaging and appearance exactly, burned the three tracks onto vinyl look CDs and then sold them (or gave them away), claiming to be an official representitive of the band, I'd be *mightily* ed off. If you want to sing it down your local Karaoke, or mash it up with your own beats, a Scandiwegian Black Metal band, or Ted Ray reading Thomas The Tank Engine then (so long as you send me a copy!) go for it - it's re-use of ideas, not theft. I've also got a book out. If I find out
Re: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
This is a splendidly informed debate, incidentally. I'm enjoying it. On 1/31/07, Stephen Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Media groups tend to equate a download with a (potential) lost sale. This is just not the case. Many people who download, especially cross borders may discover television from other countries to which they had no access. Example: The Daily Show was sold to More4 as an exclusive purchase for within the territory of the UK. The production company is selling something that commands a good price because it is selling the rights to exclusively show this programme in the UK. If the majority of people were watching it via BitTorrent et al, then the value of the show to the More4 is much less. This is the problem. Not a missed sale; but a very badly harmed value of a product. Many other people who download are of course unable to afford the vast majority of what they download. They may be getting something for free, but still are not lost sales. I nicked it because I can't afford it is an interesting claim when talking about downloading via computer and broadband connection (two luxury products), and it still doesn't recompense The Daily Show for lost value for its product, or More4 for lost advertising revenue. Remember, More4 and their advertisers are paying for the programme, so you don't have to. Sadly, it is rare that media institutions are forward looking, nor wish to reconsider their current policies to take into account recent technological developments. What makes this worse is that a large number of people within their companies are likely to be 'illegal' downloaders, and there will be some that also know distribution protocols such as bittorrent, and the necessary economics to distribute in this way. I doubt however, any such people would find it advantageous to reveal this to their employer, unless they already held a large amount of influence in the company. Well, all media institutions have people that research new technology within them. I'm paid to do that. I have used BitTorrent, Kazaa and Napster (all of which are/were possible to use legally, incidentally); I have hacked subscription television; and have done a variety of other entertaining things on and offline. I expect (and hope) the rest of my team have done so as well. Blimey - imagine what you'd be saying if we didn't bother to research? [I ought to point out that I haven't, though, shared any substantive amount of other peoples' material; because I don't own it.] Finally: you claim media institutions aren't forward looking. If you've not realised, you're arguing with someone who works for a commercial radio station, on a mailing list run by the BBC for developers to mash-up their content. Excellent. ;) -- http://james.cridland.net/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 1/29/07, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 29/01/07, James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In most cases, the broadcaster has negotiated limited rights The distributor's limited rights have been extended in the opposite direction to where distribution technology has taken us. Agreed: probably precisely because distribution technology is taking us a different way. rights in a limited time-frame and a limited territory to exploit copyright material: for which wholesale and free copying via BitTorrent without DRM is wholly unrealistic. Wholly unrealistic seems pretty nutty when http://www.uknova.com/ and friends are doing it anyway. If you make furniture, the fact that occasionally someone nicks a chair from your factory doesn't mean that you should stop charging for chairs. -- http://james.cridland.net/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 29/01/07, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I forwarded my reply to an old friend, Miles Metcalfe More interesting comments from Miles: Never in the history of creative product have rights holders contemplated or been allowed to get away with restrictions against the affordances of their medium - nor should they now. I would argue that three things reward rights holders for the risk of easy copying: one, digital distribution is reaches new market (reaching consumers that would otherwise not have consumed); two, digital distribution significantly reduces costs (by transferring the cost of instantiating the product from the producer to the consumer); three, digital distribution allows the creation of new business models, and therefore extra avenues for monetisation. These three things are sufficient gain to offset the duplication risk - and organisations like the BBC should be telling rights holders so. -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 30/01/07, James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/29/07, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 29/01/07, James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In most cases, the broadcaster has negotiated limited rights The distributor's limited rights have been extended in the opposite direction to where distribution technology has taken us. Agreed: probably precisely because distribution technology is taking us a different way. Both sides see the need for the rights to be reconciled with the technological reality. Proprietary Culturalists are trying to make copying machines less good at copying with DRM, and call for extended restriction on the public. Free Culturalists are continuing to make copying machines better at copying than ever, and call for reduced restrictions on the public. Cui bono? rights in a limited time-frame and a limited territory to exploit copyright material: for which wholesale and free copying via BitTorrent without DRM is wholly unrealistic. Wholly unrealistic seems pretty nutty when http://www.uknova.com/ and friends are doing it anyway. If you make furniture, the fact that occasionally someone nicks a chair from your factory doesn't mean that you should stop charging for chairs. Metaphors that compare digital data to physical objects are almost always confusion. Stealing is stealing, copying is copying. Stealing is not copying. If you make furniture, the fact that furniture-duplication wands are invented does not give you the right to restrict people from duplicating chairs. Capitalism is infinitely adaptable, and furniture commerce will continue in a world that permits furniture duplication. Capitalism is not threatened by changes to business models - but some businesses are threatened. Some are powerful, and being under threat, try to misrepresent my position from a threat to a business model to a threat to business. Such as all the copying is stealing crap everytime we visit the cinema or buy a portable media player. -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 1/29/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's not a case of what I think about the law, it is my understanding of it. There is no legal precedent to support your position. Yours neither. :-) Well there is two precedents. Firstly the BBC took BSB to the high court to stop them showing highlights of the World Cup in 1990 - and lost. http://nic.suzor.com/articles/TransformativeUse.pdf page 141 The BBC vs BSB paragraph in this PDF reads as follows (and yes, I can copy this legally!)... In BBC v BSB (The 1990 World Cup Case),475 the defendant rebroadcast highlights of the BBC's live broadcasts of football matches over the course of the 1990 World Cup in Italy, and asserted that the rebroadcasting was fair dealing for the purpose of news reporting. The UK High Court took a broad approach to the question of fair dealing, holding that the rebroadcasts were for the purposes of reporting the news, rejecting the suggestion that the BSB's purpose was not to report the news, but that it had an 'oblique motive' to quickly boost their popularity by using the most memorable highlights of the matches. The fact that the highlights were also entertaining, and that the BSB benefited from providing them, did not mean that the purpose of the rebroadcast was not for reporting the news. This deals in 'fair-dealing' for use of excerpts in news broadcasting. I don't quite follow how it's relevant to allowing UK users to copy, in full, copyrighted material. The second is the withdrawal of the BBC and ITV (and soon C4 and Five) from using BSkyB's encryption service on satellite, because the EU Television Without Frontiers directive allows them not to. This is related to territorial rights granted by those that hold the copyright; again, I don't quite follow how it's relevant in allowing UK users to copy, in full, copyrighted material. Copyright in most television and radio programmes are not, in actual fact, wholly owned by the broadcaster. From music rights to other areas, copyright rests in a whole set of bodies which isn't easily entangled. In most cases, the broadcaster has negotiated limited rights in a limited time-frame and a limited territory to exploit copyright material: for which wholesale and free copying via BitTorrent without DRM is wholly unrealistic. I admire your obvious enthusiasm, mind. j - 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/
Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
On 29/01/07, James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In most cases, the broadcaster has negotiated limited The distributor's limited rights have been extended in the opposite direction to where distribution technology has taken us. rights in a limited time-frame and a limited territory to exploit copyright material: for which wholesale and free copying via BitTorrent without DRM is wholly unrealistic. Wholly unrealistic seems pretty nutty when http://www.uknova.com/ and friends are doing it anyway. Copyright as it stands has been broken by our new digital circumstances. I concede that most BBC content is being held to ransom by copyrights held by 3rd parties. But whatever isn't, should at least be made available along the lines Brian Butterworth has made out. As a British citizen and BBC-Tax payer, I personally find that it being made available to look at, but not touch and reuse, isn't enough - this material should be released under a copyleft license for me. As a human being, and having seen wonders like Wikipedia, I'd like it to be released under a copyleft license for worldwide use. -- 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
Sorry if you didn't get why this is a backstage issue, let me explain more carefully. I'm not sure how a torrent counts as the making [...] of a recording of a broadcast. Obviously, you can make a direct recording of a broadcast yourself for time-shifting purposes however you want (VCR, PVR, MythTV); but sharing that recording by torrent or any other means is certainly not covered by the section you quote (it refers to making not sharing, re-broadcasting, etc.), nor is downloading that torrent elsewhere (which is copying the recording of a broadcast, not making) Of course making a torrent is not making a recording of a broadcast. But you can use a PVR (Sky+), Media Center, Windows or Mac to record off-air onto a hard drive does, as does using a video cassette recorder with a video cassette or DVD-R burner with a blank DVD. The law allows you to make any recording you like and watch it where you like as long as the recording and viewing is done in domestic premises. You can pick up your laptop, PVR or computer and take it somewhere else and watch legally. Also you can copy from a PVR onto a DVD burner legally. Your PVR or PC can change the format of the recording (say, MPEG2 to WM9 or DivX) legally. So I really can't see how using a computer network such as BitTorrent breaks any law, as long as both parties are domestic. If it *IS* illegal then the Slingbox is illegal too, isn't it? Anyway, the point is this: *IF* it is legal to make recording in domestic premises of broadcast TV programmes (which it clearly is) *AND* *IF* it is legal to share the recordings in domestic premises of said recordings (which is appears to be) Then... What is the point of the BBC spending £1,200,000,000 pounds on setting up the iPlayer service when it could simply support any organization or individual who wanted to provide such a service from their home. I would have thought that support from backstage in the form of: - a BBC-programmes-on-trackers indexing service for the public - technical assistance to those who wish to record, encode and peer-to-peer fileshare BBC programmes, perhaps even with 'install packs' to make it simple for the viewer. - a prize fund of 1,000 free TV licences for those who contribute the most BBC recordings to the networks. - an idiots guide to installing the necessary clients for the average user. The advantage of using peer-to-peer distribution would mean a zero-cost to the BBC for bandwidth. I would have though the scope for backstage people to drive such as project would be huge, and could use any form of compression system (DivX, Xvid, WM9, MPEG2, MPEG4), resolution (HDTV, SDTV and iPod quarter-screen) and filesharing service. As long a domestic-to-domestic peer-to-peer networks are used (so the programmes never end up on a commercial server) I think the system could be legal. If PVRs with network ports could be networked together, this would be perfect. Anyway, I would prefer that the £1.2 billion was spent on new UK programme production, more journalists and local TV, rather than the iPlayer. If someone can provide some actual evidence that this would be illegal, I'll be happy to shut up about it, but I don't want Auntie spending over a billion quid if she doesn't need to. As long as the BBC can insist that a licence fee is paid by anyone who is watching a recording of a domestic broadcast at a second location this would not be a threat to BBC funding. IANAL, but it seems pretty clear to me, no matter what you think about the law as it stands. It's not a case of what I think about the law, it is my understanding of it. There is no legal precedent to support your position. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.17.12/653 - Release Date: 26/01/2007 11:11 - 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/
