BBC Download Plans Approved

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that following approval from the BBC Trust (an independent oversight body) they are now allowed to release their 'iPlayer', enabling the download and viewing of BBC owned content such as Doctor Who. Unfortunately the Trust also mandated the use of DRM to enforce a 30 day playable period, and exempted classical music performances from being made available. There will now be a 2 month consultation period. According to one of the trustees, the Trust 'could still change its mind if there was a public outcry and it was backed up by evidence.'"

another option

According to one of the trustees, the Trust 'could still change its mind if there was a public outcry and it was backed up by evidence.'

What if there's a public outcry and it's backed up by drunken rioting?

Re:another option

No, there's a public consultation [bbc.co.uk], and a here's link direct to the press release [bbc.co.uk]here's the bit about DRM

This requires the BBC to develop an alternative DRM framework to enable users of other technology, for example, Apple and Linux, to access the on-demand services.

So not only are they keeping DRM, they are going to try and create a DRM for Linux

Re:another option

Well remember we, as license payers, pay for the content to be made. Giving it away to the world for free would probably be in violation of their charter, and would certainly make me ask "Why am I paying this again"?

Ah, if only the truth were so simplistic.

I've seen such arguments trotted out from time to time, and believe me -- I feel for my friends out in the UK who have to pay for a television license. Here in Canada we have no such fee, which is the way things should be.

HOWEVER, don't for a minute assume that your TV license fee dollars are the only funds that go into producing quality BBC programming, and thus that said programming should never escape across boarders through the Internet.

You see, where you pay a license fee to the BBC to own a television in your part of the world, here in my part of the world the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is funded (in part) through tax dollars -- including my tax dollars. And yet CBC Programming (especially documentaries) is shown all around the world, including portions of which are available online.

Aside from that, let's look at one of the shows the BBC is proposing to make available online: Doctor Who [imdb.com]. Click the link and scroll down to "Production Companies". Yes, that's right, the venerable BBC Sci-Fi series is produced in part by the CBC.

Thus, I at least have already paid for part of Doctor Who. How many other modern BBC shows are co-produced in conjunction with the national broadcasters in other (esp. Commonwealth) countries?

(Let's not also mention that the BBC already broadcasts world-wide via various cable outlets, like BBC Canada [bbccanada.com] and BBC America [bbcamerica.com], amongst others).

I don't argue with the complaint that the UK's TV licensing fee seems like a cash-grab to my eyes, but that's up to you and your countrymen to fix, and not something I can affect change for. However, the view that your licensing fees are the sole source of funding for popular BBC shows doesn't exactly reflect modern reality, and the desire to prevent such shows from being made available to the world for free online isn't going to put the cat back into the bag: it escaped long, long ago, and probably never should have been in there in the first place.

Yaz.

please check the accounts and verify this ...

>>> "Aside from that, let's look at one of the shows the BBC is proposing to make available online: Doctor Who [imdb.com]. Click the link and scroll down to "Production Companies". Yes, that's right, the venerable BBC Sci-Fi series is produced in part by the CBC.

Thus, I at least have already paid for part of Doctor Who. How many other modern BBC shows are co-produced in conjunction with the national broadcasters in other (esp. Commonwealth) countries? "

You may be right. But I suspect that if CBC is in the credit then they are being paid a commercial rate for their services by the BBC. In which case, even if you fund other work by the CBC then your entitlement to BBC(UK) output is non-existent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worl dwidestories/pressreleases/2004/10_october/doctor_ who_canada.shtml [bbc.co.uk]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worl dwidestories/pressreleases/2006/04_april/mip_torch wood.shtml [bbc.co.uk]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/news/drwh o/2005/06/29/20283.shtml [bbc.co.uk]
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/05/08/british-tv -awards.html [www.cbc.ca]

Reading between the lines in the above reports it seems that CBC "sponsored" the production ("produced by BBC Wales in association with the CBC") by buying it early and plugging it prime-time. For example in the news report (last link above) about Doctor Who winning an award they don't mention anything about it being produced by CBC, that seems strange to me as in Wales if a Doctor Who producer wipes his nose it's all over the news reports (! eww). BBC news here also gives the impression that the show is Welsh made (Welsh nationalism is rife).

[quote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worl dwidestories/pressreleases/2006/04_april/mip_torch wood.shtml%5D [bbc.co.uk] Kirstine Layfield, Executive Director, Network Programming, CBC Television, commented: "CBC is proud to supplement our overwhelmingly Canadian schedule with the best of the rest of the world, and our British programming has struck a real chord with audiences here. We're delighted with the success of Doctor Who, and we're sure Torchwood will prove equally popular." [/quote]

[quote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worl dwidestories/pressreleases/2004/10_october/doctor_ who_canada.shtml%5D [bbc.co.uk] BBC Worldwide today concluded its first major pre-sale for the new Doctor Who series with Canadian public broadcaster, CBC Television. [/quote]

Re:another option

It's quite simple - if you are British and you pay a license fee then make your views known. The feedback survey is quite short, and each section is optional. If you feel that timelimited DRM files are bullshit, especially from a license-fee funded public organisation then make your views known now!

The British slashdot readership must be large enough to make a difference here.

Re:another option

've done that already, also, just before this story was posted, I submitted a story with the title: "BBC proposing DRM for Linux", and both the links from my post in it. There's not a huge amount more I can do, short of writing to my, electronically illiterate, elected representatives that is, and they have no power over the BBC anyway; they can only bring moral pressure to bear.

It's difficult to imagine how more inaccurate you could be. The BBC would like to be able to make programmes available for much longer if not indefinitely. In their original proposal they wanted a time frame of 13 weeks, which was cut to 30 days. Who cut it? Not the BBC themselves, but an organization called 'The BBC Trust', an independent body that replaced the corporation's governors at the beginning of 2007. Basically a bunch of stooges appointed by the government to make sure that the BBC no longer has the ability to be totally independent and go against the wishes of the almighty Tony Blair and his cronies. The sole purpose of this 'DRM for Linux' is to satisfy this fucking stupid 30 day rules that the Trust has forced on them.

Why did it get cut? Because of pressure from the elected representatives (i.e. the government) who due to the fact that they are in bed with big business (i.e. Rupert Murdoch etc.) didn't want to do anything that might piss off their rich buddies. In other words they exerted considerably more than just 'moral pressure'.

The BBC have released non-DRM'd mp3 copies of their radio output for ages - I have no doubt they'd like to do something similar for TV, but hey, we all know whose interests are at the heart of government these days, and it sure as hell ain't the people who elected them.

Re:another option

If you want to make your views known, the BBC's online consultation form is here [bbc.co.uk]

Let's make our opinions known!

The classical music reasoning is worse

The thing I found most unfortunate about the whole affair was that the reason given by the BBC Trust for not releasing the classical music: "There is a potential negative market impact if the BBC allows listeners to build an extensive library of classical music that will serve as a close substitute for commercially available downloads or CDs." [Emphasis added]

There are a lot of misconceptions about the BBC (not least how much of its funding comes from licence fees rather than other sources), but I'm pretty sure it's still supposed to be run essentially in the public interest. I don't really understand how protecting the commercial interests of classical music distributors are the expense of the public is part of that remit.

If we're talking about music that's out of copyright itself (Beethoven was the example given), and the particular recording is already being made available for the BBC to broadcast, you'd think the Beeb could negotiate some fair additional compensation for the recording orchestras in exchange for the rights to make it downloadable as well. After all, we have the Proms every year and no doubt some people record and keep those (legally or otherwise), so it doesn't seem like orchestras mind the coverage. Why not legitimise keeping the material, throw in a bit of fair compensation for the recording artists to match, and make the world a little nicer for all concerned?

Re:The classical music reasoning is worse

Yes, I agree, and I think it also shows how little the BBC Trust understands the classical music market (and probably how little the BMI understands too). With the greatest respect to the musicians who recorded the the BBC free to download performances, these are not the finest examples of these pieces recorded, nor are they distributed in the most lossless format - lossless is essential for classical music.

Serious classical fans will look for and purchase the finest performances, possibly several of them - and often pay through the nose for them too (since there's little choice other than, maybe, a rare flac torrent).

The advantage of the BBC programme is that it introduced many pieces of music to a new audience, who then likely would become fans and subsequently pay to see live performances and cds of the finest recordings.

It's a shocking waste of a missed opportunity.

iPlayer

...they are now allowed to release their 'iPlayer'...

i love how it's 'cool' to name everything i* now. the bbc couldn't come up w/ a better name? at least something british sounding.

Re:iPlayer

They do come by it honestly, though. It's a reference to "BBCi," [wikipedia.org] which stands for "BBC interactive" and has been the brand name of their digital and online services since 2001.

I think it's actually pronounced oi-payah

I just hope that it has subtitling built in. They talk funny over there.

Re:iPlayer

Mr Cholmondley-Warner: what's this? I hear the BBC have come up with a newfangled light entertainment device.
Grayson: Yes, Mr Cholmondley-Warner, thay have. Its called the iPlayer.
CW: How remarkable, but I must admit that it sounds rather similar to something those colonial chappies might come up with.
G: Indeed so, one almost thinks that the name was specifically chosen to stop Mr Stephen Jobs from using it in one of his modern-day thingummybobs.
CW:Well, if we're beating the Yanks at their own game, I think we can live with it.
G: Indeed! Ho ho.
CW: Yes. Ho ho.

Sounds like the usual B.S.

From TFA:

The BBC Trust, an independent body that replaced the corporation's governors at the beginning of 2007, said the on-demand plans - which also cover cable TV - were "likely to deliver significant public value".

But it agreed with broadcasting watchdog Ofcom, which said earlier this month that the iPlayer could have a "negative effect" on commercial rivals.

As a result, the trust has imposed several conditions on the BBC.

It wants the corporation to scale back plans to let downloaded "catch-up" episodes remain on users' hard drives for 13 weeks, suggesting that 30 days is enough.

Chris Woolard, head of finance, economics and strategy at the Trust, defended the decision to cut the storage time.

When people record a programme at home "if they don't look at it within 48 hours, they don't look at it at all", he said.

So basically, it's the usual -- a bunch of politicians trying hard not to piss off their corporate masters, while tossing a bone to the public here and there, just enough to keep people coming out to the next election and maintaining the facade.

Re:Sounds like the usual B.S.

This is something that's always irked me about objections to the BBC's funding scheme, emanating from the likes of ITV and Sky - the BBC was there first! These companies entered the market with the full knowledge that they were competing against a publicly funded body. It would be like me building a road somewhere, and then complaining that all the other roads in the country get public money.

Windows Only

Despite their commitment to mac and linux compatibility on their audio streaming, the iPlayer only runs on windows, disappointing as I'm sure even us mac users pay our licence fees.

Re:Time limited DRM?

Unlike their audio streaming (which can use Real, WMP, or QT streaming), they'd have to create a new video format & player to handle time-limited DRM. They can't just buy it from Real/MS/Apple.

That's what their Press release [bbc.co.uk] suggests:

The Trust will require the BBC Executive to adopt a platform-agnostic approach within a reasonable timeframe. This requires the BBC to develop an alternative DRM framework to enable users of other technology, for example, Apple and Linux, to access the on-demand services. (emphsis mine)

So, yes it seems they are going to create "BBC DRM", and not only that but "BBC DRM for Linux" as well.

Re:Windows Only

The original plans for the iPlayer were based on Windows Media. But as part of the announcement today, the Trust has said the service will have to cater for all platforms. From the press release [bbctrust.co.uk]:

Platform-agnostic approach: As proposed, the TV catch-up service on the internet relies on Microsoft technology for the digital rights management (DRM) framework. The Trust will require the BBC Executive to adopt a platform-agnostic approach within a reasonable timeframe. This requires the BBC to develop an alternative DRM framework to enable users of other technology, for example, Apple and Linux, to access the on-demand services.

Re:Windows Only

Thats why I love the BBC and I am happy pay my license fee. If the Beeb was a normal TV station, they would just take the lazy option of windows only. Name me another tv station who would do this ? Value for money.

DRM vs. content distribution expansion

In time, the fears of DRM will subside (hopefully!) and content owners will fully embrace this new distribution medium.

Of course, they still need to generate revenues to continue operations. Perhaps the whole idea of 'commercials' or even 'advertising' as a revenue source will evolve to include other yet-un-thought-of sources much like the distribution medium.

Already available without DRM

I really don't understand why they are bothering to put DRM on it: the entire BBC output is already available over-the-air in unencrypted digital form via digital television (MPEG2/DVB-T). Never mind the analogue hole: there's a gaping digital hole out there!

Re:Already available without DRM

The DRM is there because everyone who can recieve the over-the-air clear MPEG signal is supposedly paying a licence fee.

Worse than the alternative

Of course, you could just record the shows with your TV tuner, and play them on your Archos, and they wouldn't expire, but why would anyone want that?

Is this for money?

Maybe I'm missing something, but TFA doesn't make it at all clear whether they're planning on selling these downloads, or just giving them away. Any info?

iPlayer?

iPlayer? Sounds like it will be compatible with Apple's iSue.

apple to announce new iPlayer product

BBC look out. You can't just use that 'i'. What were you thinking?! Don't you know that apple owns the letter 'i' now? There are 25 other perfectly good letters.

30-day viewing period?

Something tells me the majority of non-British Dr. Who fans will continue to obtain the show by less...contstraining means.

Eventually they'll figure it out: until we can download it and watch it in the viewer of our choice as often as we want when we want, we will continue to obtain copies of such content by other means than theirs.

bittorent

"The BBC reports that following approval from the BBC Trust (an independent oversight body) they are now allowed to release their 'iPlayer', enabling the download and viewing of BBC owned content such as Doctor Who. Unfortunately the Trust also mandated the use of DRM to enforce a 30 day playable period"

Or you could use bittorrent. I'm not entirely sure of the legality of downloading things that you already pay a license for such as TV shows, but that's never stopped anyone before.

Re:bittorent

Since only people in Britain pay the BBC telly tax, what is the status of these downloads as far as the rest of the world is concerned? I can't see the BBC Trust subsidizing bandwidth of content paid for by Britons so that people in the US or Chile or Katmandu can watch Dr Who or whatever. Are they going to use IP blocking or something?

Public Verus Private.

NBC is entirely a private enterprise that (in theory) compensates the public for use of its airspace adequatly via the licences for it's broadcast spectrum (read the in theory before you flame me). As such they have something of a leg to stand on when they claim private ownership and the attractions of DRM for their crap... er ... shows.

Anyway, the BBC is (at least on paper) a public enterprise oned (in heory) by the British Public and paid for via the TV Tax. Much like the Voice of America is a service funded by the American Public. As such shouldn't the content produced by the Beeb be freely available (at least to the Brits, Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish) for them to do with as they please? Didn't they pay to have it made and as such "own" it?

Or is this one of those cases where the drive to resell said content (say on BBC-America or via deals with other channels, or on DVD) that was supposed to "offset costs" now driving availability?

Re:Public Verus Private.

The UK govt doesn't work like that. What happens is they build something with tax payer's money, attach lots of legislative strings to its output/produce then sell it off because it's "not working". Normally a government minister will then become a director of said privatised company within a couple of years.

The BBC has lots of legislative strings and the reason they can't share the content is ostensibly because it would be competitively "unfair" on the independent TV stations who don't have access to taxpayers money. Of course in the real world ITV and C4 are doing it anyway, but that sort of minor detail doesn't matter in politics.

The iPlayer DRM is pointless..

The imposition of DRM is pointless, at least if the goal is to limit redistribution of the content. The BBC are already digitally broadcasting all of their content, classical or otherwise, from all of their broadcasting stations in clear. (Crystal Palace is even broadcasting 20Mbit/sec H.264 streams as part of the current HD trials; indeed, my understanding is that the BBC will continue to broadcast in clear when the service goes into full production.)

Presumably OFCOM want to force the BBC to use DRM (they even specified that it should be Windows DRM) in order to buoy the position of Microsoft and/or commercial broadcasters?

In any case, I guess my MythTV server will continue to be useful for some time yet.

public outcry?

There will be no public outcry. There will be no public users. Waste my DL limits for a 30 day playable period? How about wait for the 'fixed' version on bt instead?

BBC will get no complaints, and then wonder why DLs are so low.

Feedback about DRM

From the article:

"There is a potential negative market impact if the BBC allows listeners to build an extensive library of classical music that will serve as a close substitute for commercially available downloads or CDs," it said.

The news will be a disappointment to the one million people who downloaded Beethoven's symphonies in a Radio 3 trial last year.

I downloaded those symphonies. I still listen to them. There's no DRM, my only complaint is that a higher bitrate could have been used (128k hardly does justice).

The BBC should be providing licence fee payers like myself with unrestricted digital content. If we end up building up massive libraries of free classical music, then so much the better! It is their job to educate, inform and entertain licence fee payers, not sell us CDs. They should not be concerned with "negative market impacts" - they should be providing the public service that we Brits are paying for.

Will anyone care enough?

The public outcry will sound much like people not purchasing their product.

Unnecessarily complicated

Why develop their own player? It's all content produced for tax money, just put it up on the net for free. Swedish state television streams a lot of programs, unfortunately only in WMV or quicktime, but at least I don't have to download a separate player.

Exempted?

...exempted classical music performances from being made available...

Is that similar to the way that people in jail get exempted from leaving the jail?

Dirac?

I wonder if the iPlayer will use Dirac [bbc.co.uk], the open source video codec the BBC have been developing?

One of the consultation questions

"How important is it that the proposed seven-day catch-up service over the internet is available to consumers who are not using Microsoft software?"

Anybody in the UK who wants to join in the consultation can use this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/open-consult ations/ondemand_services.html [bbc.co.uk]

Plan won't work

But [the BBC trust] agreed with broadcasting watchdog Ofcom, which said earlier this month that the iPlayer could have a "negative effect" on commercial rivals

I think that's not the BBC's problem. The commercial rivals must take care of themselves - by, for example, providing higher quality content or different content. Is Ofcom asserting that there's a limit to the amount of classical music and TV shows which the economy can support? That having more choice will lead inevitably to commercial loss for these competitors? Perhaps the BBC should stop producing classical music and high quality TV programs altogether lest they damage the market share of commercial competitors? Perhaps we should limit access to the Public Domain too, since it can't be easily monopolised.

It wants the corporation to scale back plans to let downloaded "catch-up" episodes remain on users' hard drives for 13 weeks, suggesting that 30 days is enough.

Assuming (as devil's advocate) that their DRM is adequate, why limit the time that the content works? If somebody records one of these shows on their VCR, they are allowed to watch it again and again forever. Why limit a user's fair use rights for no better reason than "because it's technically possible"?

The trust also asked the BBC to explore ways of introducing parental controls to its on-demand services, as it is worried at the "heightened risk of children being exposed to post-watershed material".

TV doesn't require electronic "parental controls", so why should downloaded shows?

"There is a potential negative market impact if the BBC allows listeners to build an extensive library of classical music that will serve as a close substitute for commercially available downloads or CDs," it said.

I'm afraid they're several years too late on that point. It seems the BBC Trust hasn't been paying attention to recent events. Here are some facts to brighten your day:

• DRM doesn't work. Cross-platform DRM doesn't work even more than ordinary DRM doesn't work. The media will be read (CDs), the encryption will be broken (DVDs), the keys will be recovered (HD-DVD and BluRay), or the audio will be captured (iTunes). All DRM does is annoy ordinary people.
• All it takes is one person to remove the DRM from your content and upload to a P2P network, then the non-DRM file will spread because it's more convenient to people than the DRM file. For example, they will be able to play it in their favourite music player rather than having to use yours.
• This content is already paid-for, by the British television-owning public.
• Making the content easy to download from the source (BBC) will discourage people from making it available on P2P networks.
• Making a wide range of content available on a permanent basis will earn the BBC a lot of respect.
• The BBC is guilty of years of mismanagement of its legacy, losing historically priceless television footage. Opening up what's left (under, say, a non-commercial Creative Commons license) is one way that the BBC could make amends, as well as limiting the possibility of that travesty happening again.

Rights, DRM and the BBC

Q: I'm a UK citizen, pay my licence fee so why can't I just access all the content I've paid for?
A: You don't "own" the broadcast anymore than the BBC does necessarily....it's all down to rights, there's all kinds of fingers in all kinds of pies with respects to broadcast/distribution rights - if you've used an external production company to produce the content / used someone's music / an image / a certain actor they will all have rights with respect to how/when that content is used.

It's a legal minefield which usually comes with all kinds of restrictions about when and where you can use the content :-(

As I understand it, licence fee money entitles the beeb to pay for things to be produced (internally / externally), and to be shown somehow/somewhere at somepoint and that's about it.

Add in to this that you require different kinds of rights for different kinds of distribution - web + TV require two different lots of rights negotiations to take place - and it all gets very messy *really* quickly.

As for other countries accessing content, I'd hazard a guess that it's a case of UK folk having paid for the bandwidth and not being able to support the whole world downloading - the worldwide / commercial arm of the bbc could potentially syndicate paid episodes for download I guess.

Q: Why bung DRM on everything?
A: RIGHTS again (you beginning to see the picture yet) - johnny rightsholder is very cagey about digital distribution (*GASP* - everyone will be able to COPY our content - cue mouth frothing) so in order to be able to even offer it for distribution over the internet tubes a distributor *has* to make concessions to the rightsholders, otherwise you would have no content to offer = DRM + time restricted windows for viewing things. I'd hope that this is likely to change over time as people sort out the whole rights mess and we have some legal framework which accurately reflects a fair digital distribution model.

Q: Why not platform XXX?
A: I'm pretty sure this will be down to DRM requirements AND the fact that the BBC already has an infrastructure in place for transcoding / streaming WM content. Judging from the consultation results, this is likely to change if a requirement to be platform portable is enforced - maybe rolling something custom like DIRAC would be an option?

Re:What's wrong with the British...

Because we'll be getting to download all these programmes free of charge...

We pay our TV licences for a reason.

Re:dumb

Since these programs are transmitted in the UK without any DRM, there's no point in bothering to try to break the DRM on these downloads. People will just record the transmissions instead.

Re:iFacism

I don't know if its still true but last I looked, one of the good thing about the BBC is that its news service is as close to an independent news service as its possible to get. The BBC doesn't have to bow down to any corporate masters (unlike commercial news services such as CNN, Fox News, Channel 4, ITV etc etc) and because they aren't government funded (thanks to the license fee) they don't have to bow down to the government either

Re:When the DRM is cracked....

Copyright infringement is already a criminal offence in the UK, but Fair Dealing is a defence.

Since it's up to the courts to decide what actually constitutes Fair Dealing (i.e. you have to let yourself get taken to court, protesting your innocence; and if you get acquitted, then whatever it was that you did is now officially legal for anyone else to do), it's not in anyone's interest actually to prosecute. No jury in the land is going to send someone down for keeping a library of their favourite recorded programmes (find twelve people and you can bet your arse that two of them have video collections taped off the telly), but the rights holders don't want to risk having home taping declared legal.

British law is full of unprosecutable offences. None of them are worth bothering about, because everyone except the Queen breaks the law several times a day. The only time it might be worth worrying about is if you have committed some other, prosecutable offence, because evidence pointing to one, minor offence can be used as an excuse to search for evidence of other, more major offences. (This is often called a "blatant fishing trip" by magistrates denying a search warrant to police officers in crime drama series on the BBC.)