Secret BBC Documents Reveal Flimsy Case For DRM 199
mouthbeef writes "The Guardian just published my investigative story on the BBC and Ofcom's abuse of secrecy laws to hide the reasons for granting permission for DRM on UK public broadcasts. The UK public overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, but Ofcom approved it anyway, saying they were convinced by secret BBC arguments that couldn't be published due to 'commercial sensitivity.' As the article shows, the material was neither sensitive nor convincing — a fact that Ofcom and the BBC tried to hide from the public."
Surprise surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Arguments for inherently impossible protection system that consumers hate flawed, news at 11.
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Surprise, surprise, a first post that responds to the title only, and not even the summary. The story isn't that DRM is flawed, the real story here is that secrecy laws were evoked to redact commentary from the BBC. Concluding paragraph from the article:
Welcome to DRM Britain. Our BBC will give privileges to American TV companies that the US government won't give them, and our "independent" regulator won't even tell us why.
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
Britain does this... the US government does this... the fundamental problem would seem to be politicians + businesses + money = corruption, as a definitive formula, no?
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well I always thought it was more like
(Politicians + Businesses)*(money + perceived power) = corruption.
I put perceived power in there because most of a politicians power comes from the thought of power that their office holds with what it actually does.
the President of the United States supposedly the most powerful position on EArth really only has three hammers with which to fix things. Lawyers, diplomats, and Military. He has no other tool. what's worse is his diplomats and Military are partially cont
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the President of the United States supposedly the most powerful position on EArth really only has three hammers with which to fix things. Lawyers, diplomats, and Military. He has no other tool. what's worse is his diplomats and Military are partially controlled by Congress.
For being so Powerful he really can't do much.
It's that way on purpose, so that the "most powerful man in the world" doesn't become a dictator.
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Ok, it seems you're not the only one who gets this wrong, so...
PEDANT MODE ACTIVATED.
The term is "Film at 11".
It comes from the dim and distant past, when news broadcasts from out in the field were recorded on actual film, which had to be cut and processed in studio before it could be aired.
A story would be announced earlier in the evening, promising the "film at 11", when you could tune in and actually see the footage.
Get it now, Mr Frosty Piss?
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
The other side's arguments consist of "WAAAAH I hate the nature of computers, make them work different so that *I* will be the master of other people's computers and those people will be forced to pay whenever any content my company has a perpetual copyright on is viewed with one, WAAAH!"
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, read beyond the title and post something that isn't just a childlike and generic screed against DRM. The big issue here is in how a state broadcaster and a regulator conspired to very much go against the interests of the public. In that regard it certainly is a "news at 11" situation for the more cynical ones among us.
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The big issue here is in how a state broadcaster and a regulator conspired to very much go against the interests of the public. In that regard it certainly is a "news at 11"
Yes it's news, they're both news...although I find this equally unsurprising :-(
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Amen, my friend, unfortunately.
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In my experience the BBC have a fairly relaxed
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Not in any country I know of. Trademarks are subject to this in the US, but it's not true of copyright in countries that are signatories to the Berne convention.
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.
And while it is required to be politically neutral, it is in fact a nest of Bolsheviks and AGW advocates, and is consistently biased towards the Left.
I only watch it for the odd bit of football and motor sport nowadays - the rest of the coverage (including supposed 'science' programming) is just not worth the effort.
The DRM thing was likely under instruction from Lord
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And while it is required to be politically neutral, it is in fact a nest of Bolsheviks and AGW advocates, and is consistently biased towards the Left.
if I didn't know better I'd think that was the claims of a US talk radio listener about US public broadcasting
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And while it is required to be politically neutral, it is in fact a nest of Bolsheviks
I'm pretty sure bolsheviks aren't nearly as pro-strong-copyright as the BBC. For a reference, go and find the most recent article about the EU copyright extension for music. It came with three quotes, one from someone who proposed the bill, one from a music label, and one from a music industry lobbyist. No one quoted in the entire article ever even hinted that perhaps perpetually extending copyright terms might not be the best option.
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You're thinking of the totalitarians who took over the Bolsheviks, generally by murder, and continued the Russian tradition of totalitarian rule.
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Ah, yes, the Bolsheviks were all sweetness and light until Lenin/Stalin took over. What rubbish.
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"The big issue here is in how a state broadcaster and a regulator conspired to very much go against the interests of the public. In that regard it certainly is a "news at 11" situation for the more cynical ones among us."
I think you mean its news for the less cynical. For the true cynics like myself it would have been news had they acted in the interests of the public.
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Especially since the bulk of the funds for the BBC come through a license system that I think you are unable to opt out of if you live in the UK and own a TV. That, and the taxpayer money that makes up much of the rest of their funding, should mean that their content is public domain, and needs no DRM.
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
You are dork because you're missing the other side's arguments completely.
He's not missing them, they're just 100% invalid.
DRM is fundamentally broken, mathematically. It seeks to grant and deny access to the same party simultaneously.
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bbc's secret argument is actually this: BBC MAKES MONEY BY SELLING THEIR CONTENT TO FOR EXAMPLE FINNISH BBC EQUIVALENT.
so if we could just download the drm free stuff from internet shared by uk folk... well. that money might go away.
of course, regardless of the drm, we can download it if we wish and the finnish bbc equivalent will still buy them regardless of piracy - and put it online to stream on a shitty format.
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:5, Informative)
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If it still has an ethernet port or wifi access it'll still be software p0wn3d
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I hate to burst your bubble but I have this needle called the "analog hole" here...
Or do you propose that in the age of your "epoxy encased $25 PC" people will have their eyes and ear-drums removed at birth and replaced with appropriate corporato-government approved interfaces to your "epoxy PCs" to prevent these silly DRM schemes from being trivially circumvented?
Otherwise a digital camera or a digital audio recorder will put an end to this nonsense in minutes.
The GP is absolutely right. DRM is fundamen
Re:Surprise surprise (Score:4, Informative)
You're technically correct (the best kind of correct!) but getting it to work 99% of the time is still a ways off and will require some big technological breakthroughs. Even today's best (in terms of cracking difficulty) DRM schemes, HDCP and TPM-enabled DRM, are still crackable with hardhacks - there are even home HDCP circumvention kits, all you have to do is tap into some wires running out of a TV's HDCP decoder (or you could just get an HDCP stripper box and hope the key doesn't get blacklisted). TPM-enabled DRM is the toughest as it places the decryption keys in a tamper-proofed piece of hardware, but even this has been broken using some fancy equipment.
Let's even say, for the sake of argument, that you can use quantum encryption tech to have the data stream encrypted until it reaches the pixels and speakers themselves. A sufficiently sharp camera with some software pointed at the screen could effectively make a digital rip via light, and then you could tie into the speaker cone leads (sorry, no way to do the same for speakers without super-advanced nanotech) and get a good analog audio rip. You'd have a very good rip using the analog hole, which will always exist until there are surveillance cameras in our homes or non-DRM'ed files are impossible to open.
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Also, there are uncrackable DRM's, but with games. There are still titles that haven't been cracked, or have been cracked improperly which leads
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That's not the point though. Companies don't care that much if it's 100% unhackable as long as it protects the content long enough (so that most sales are done) or that it hinders mass copying, as with this case. Whatever you described in your post seems like a huge effort, ever for me (and I'm a geek). It's completely out of reach from masses. That is the point.
And our point is that DRM doesn't even do that. Not even slightly. As soon as the DVD is out, the cat is out of the bag and hours later you find rips on BitTorrent.
The fact that the DRM hinders 99.99% of the people from copying MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, because noone pirates this way anymore! All pirates go to the internet to download their stuff, where the 0.01% that were able to rip did upload their stuff. Even only one person circumventing the protection is enough to make is utterly useless.
The music ind
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Companies don't care that much if it's 100% unhackable as long as it protects the content long enough (so that most sales are done) or that it hinders mass copying
Except it doesn't. BBC stuff still finds its way onto torrent trackers almost as soon as it's been broadcast. Movies are still uploaded to torrent trackers before they are released in the cinemas. The only people who find the DRM inconvenient are those wanting to legally use the media in a way not specifically catered for by the supplier.
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Someone once said that repeating the same action over and over, expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
Every DRM scheme devised has been cracked, most before they even hit the shelf. And yes it is a paradox. At some point the content goes analog and at that point you can copy it. You literally cannot deny and grant access at the same time.
By that definition it is insane to spend resources developing and utilizing yet another DRM system.
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huh, say it again
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Entrenched Interests (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Entrenched Interests (Score:5, Insightful)
Content owners do have a right to make money from their content.
But the argument for DRM is a poor one. It punishes paying customers while not stopping piracy. Even worse, content owners/providers have to pay money to license DRM technology. It is a lose-lose scenario.
The CEO of Warner Brothers at the time predicted iTunes would fail, because no one would willingly pay for digital content. He compared it to Coca Cola coming out of the faucet for free, so why would someone willingly pay for a Coke?
As it turns out, people do like supporting things they enjoy, and iTunes is the largest retailer of music on the planet. Frankly, I think Apple has enough clout that they could make a difference here. They successfully sell DRM-free music. They need to publicly make the argument for why DRM is a broken concept so that the big players finally listen.
The MPAA/RIAA won't listen to Google because they think Google is the devil.
Re:Entrenched Interests (Score:5, Informative)
Content owners do have a right to make money from their content.
But the argument for DRM is a poor one. It punishes paying customers while not stopping piracy. Even worse, content owners/providers have to pay money to license DRM technology. It is a lose-lose scenario.
The CEO of Warner Brothers at the time predicted iTunes would fail, because no one would willingly pay for digital content. He compared it to Coca Cola coming out of the faucet for free, so why would someone willingly pay for a Coke?
As it turns out, people do like supporting things they enjoy, and iTunes is the largest retailer of music on the planet. Frankly, I think Apple has enough clout that they could make a difference here. They successfully sell DRM-free music. They need to publicly make the argument for why DRM is a broken concept so that the big players finally listen.
The MPAA/RIAA won't listen to Google because they think Google is the devil.
Back in the days of Mozart, once an opera was performed for the first time it fell into public domain. You were allowed to make money on your first show and by doing the best peformance of said show for as long as the public would support you. You were thus encouraged to keep creating.
Roll to the present and if you have one good song, you employ copyright to make money from it for the rest of your life, plus 70 years for whatever offspring you had or the profit of whomever you sold the rights to.
Since Apple is not writing or performing, they'll make money because there's always a new hot song out tomorrow. **AA are terrified they won't have scratch for their lunch money or to keep their stock price up for tomorrow.
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That economic model wouldn't work today. Most new artists wouldn't be able to make much money from one public showing. And as evil as the record industry is, they do pay for the expensive/elaborate tours.
I think you can make the argument to shorten copyright, but I think instead of setting a hard/fast length of years, a simpler solution would be an abandonware system.
5 years from the date of the last retail sale, the content enters the public domain. So long as people are still buying the item (such as the
Re:Entrenched Interests (Score:4, Insightful)
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If only one person is buying a copy, then retailers won't keep it in stock.
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Ok Itunes or other digital service, It is negligible overhead for them to "keep it in stock"
This has been the future of Retailing Music, it is becoming the Retailing of video forms of entertainment.
I don't expect to see anyone in the developed world still selling CDs in 10 years time. The bar has vastly lowered for aspiring artists, which is a good thing. Technology now means you can sell or even perform over the internet. You've always had the ability to play live, as long as you can find a venue that'll have you.
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Except then the music companies could just run a small outlet store that keeps 1 of every album they own in stock, and hire someone as a "service quality tester" to go in and purchase one of every album once a year (or once every 2-4 years).
Make it require independent retail sales and customer purchases? Massive discount to said store owner for the albums so they could keep them in stock, and a running "promotion" where if someone purchases 1 of each album and sends the receipts in they get prize money equa
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Most people would prefer to have the work performed by the original artist rather than a tribute band, and concert tickets are selling better than they ever have done in the past, so I don't agree with your assertion.
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Most people would prefer to have the work performed by the original artist rather than a tribute band, and concert tickets are selling better than they ever have done in the past, so I don't agree with your assertion.
Though I can't cite the source, I did hear or read that bands make far more money on tour (money they get to keep) than they do from album sales (most of which probably go to the record company.) Perhaps this is why bands tour as much as they do.
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That's a bad idea because (among other reasons that others have posted) it requires you to investigate whether any of the millions-every-day retail sales of content that occurred in the preceding 5 years was for the content you will be claiming is now in the public domain. On the other side of the same coin, the artist would have to do the same except for a much longer time period to prove that at least one sale every 5 years occurred in order to retain his rights.
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Most new artists wouldn't be able to make much money from one public showing.
You are under the mistaken impression that artists make art for the money. Why do you think the record companies are able to rip them off so much?
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He compared it to Coca Cola coming out of the faucet for free, so why would someone willingly pay for a Coke?
Water comes out of the faucet for free, but plenty of people buy bottled water.
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Probably less than a penny per litre. The vast majority of your water is used for cleaning rather than drinking.
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Could there be a clue here for the cretins that run the media industry?
Yes. The clue would be "morons pay for anything with DRM on it" since most bottled water is just tap water put in a bottle, with some additions to increase its shelf life. And people happily pay for it.
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http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/wot/pdfs/book_waterontap_full.pdf [epa.gov]
"The national average cost of water is $2.00 per. 1000 gallons."
So $0.002 / gallon.
Assuming 16 glasses of water / gallon (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006042500884) we get:
$0.000125 / glass of water.
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This isn't about piracy.
It's about all the legally made TVs/videos having to obey bullshit rules - unskippable bits, not allow you to record a show, only keeping it for X amount of time.
It won't do a damned thing to stop copying. If you make TVs you'll need to sign a legal agreement in order to "decrypt the content" however trivial that encruption is. It'll just allow content companies to ensure that THEY control the people who make TVs - and will sue any of them who don't hop into line. They make the rules
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He compared it to Coca Cola coming out of the faucet for free, so why would someone willingly pay for a Coke?
People willingly pay for water, for Pete's sake, which does come out of a faucet for free. Sometimes it's perception (bottled water seems to taste better), sometimes it's convenience (I'm at an airshow and it's 100 degrees).
It sounds like Mr. WB CEO has no idea what people want or are willing to spend money on.
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On the other hand, those don't tend to be the parts of the world where bottled water is a big seller.
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Re:Entrenched Interests (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? OK, I'll make a movie that nobody wants to see, and nobody wants to buy, and spend my life's savings on it! Society will owe me money! Wooooohoooooo! I'm in the benjamins, baby!
Absolute statements are rarely correct. In Real Life [tm] a group of citizens have decided to permit certain types of unfair restriction of trade in order to achieve a greater good. But nobody has a "right" in the absolute, moral sense, to make money for painting a picture, recording noise, etc., etc. It is a contrived, fictious legal right meant to serve a purpose, and if it is not serving said purpose it then the law is unjust.
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And it would still be wrong.
What content owners have, ostensibly, is a right to control the distribution of their content.
It is questionable, however, whether a) this right should exist, or b) that it should exist so expansively.
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Content owners do not have a right to make money from their content, and neither do artists. If I, a mediocre musician, toil away for months putting together a crap song that no one will buy, who do I sue for infringing my "rights"?
The same argument also applies to health care, education, and all sorts of other things (generally called entitlements, lord knows why) that, while useful in a productive society, do not give rise to actual rights. For example, if I had a right to be healthy, I could sue you fo
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Content owners do have a right to make money from their content.
Actually no they do not. They have a right to TRY to make money. Just like Bank of America does not have a "right to make a profit" they only have a right to TRY to make a profit.
It is a subtle distinction but it matters a whole lot and frames the discussions a little differently.
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Rights? Entitled? You're looking at the problem wrong. In nature, copying happens all the time. Millions of times every second, bacteria divide. Any number of radios with recorders can tune into 1 radio station. A large crowd of people can gather around 1 radio, and remember what they hear. You might as well try to outlaw gravity or sex or breathing as outlaw copying. In the face of how nature really works, rights mean nothing. You can't realistically control copying, in order to monetize informati
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Yes, do they have the right, legally and morally
In that case, I am owed money for my Slashdot posts - will you be sending me the cheque? The grandparent was correct. If you create something, then the state will, through copyright, give you a mechanism to attempt to make money from it. If, however, it's crap that no one wants, then you are not entitled to make money. I have four books published, and all that copyright gives me is the right to attempt to profit from them by encouraging people to buy them. If no one does, then I don't automatically mak
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Thinking you were entitled to content for free suggests that you have justification in requiring other people to create content for you.
I'm not aware of anyone who thinks this, even the most extreme anti-Copyright advocate.
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morally
According to whose morals?
Since you brought up entitlement, people who think they are entitled to content for free are equally douchebags.
That would depend on who you ask.
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Re:Entrenched Interests (Score:5, Funny)
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Watch out for that jet passing overhead! Man, that was flying at a really low altitude!
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first 'B' in BBC stands for "British"...
So? That's in...like...New England, right?
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Woosh.
Re:Entrenched Interests (Score:5, Insightful)
Civil disobedience is defeated. First of all, if you want to commit civil disobedience, you've got to be able to show your situation is at least as bad as Jim Crow, or you'll be sneered at rather than sympathized with. Since no one in the mainstream will believe DRM is as bad as Jim Crow (even if they believe it is bad at all, which is unlikely), you're done there.
Second, civil disobedience won't work when the result of disobedience is that you are quietly punished. You need to be _noisily_ punished without being portrayed as a mere criminal, which means you need the support of the media... who are your opponents.
Third, most mainstream people agree with the RIAA's position, when push comes to shove. Oh, they'll violate it left and right, but if you put it to them, they'd agree it's wrong to do so. And they'd see anyone trying to fight about it as merely trying to avoid responsibility for their actions. Authority bias is rampant today; if you can be seen as an authority (as the RIAA is), anyone opposing you is automatically wrong.
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Nail, head hit. To the unwashed masses, DRM is made to be just like a lock on a vending machine or a fish-resistant guard on a deposit box. It is something that sucks, but people dismiss as part of what they get.
I doubt this mentality will go away anytime soon. Just like how people compare copyright infringement with theft (or murder). Infringement [1] is more akin to Beavis and Butthead sneaking into an empty theater to watch Twilight than someone shoplifting a DVD of it.
So, we will deal with the DRM c
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No, it's not theft and it hasn't implicitly "removed legitimate revenue from the IP holder".
It's still Copyright Infringement, it's just a more serious example of it.
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You talk about the use of means to maintain control over content for profit, but when the owner is itself a publicly owned body, what's the problem if the people in the country in question have free access?
So here's a chance for government to really work (Score:5, Interesting)
...so if the government were headed with a real leader (ie instead of a toady to their special-interests), they would confront whoever was the HEAD of the board that made such a statement.
They could discuss the fact that while some government activities necessarily need such protections ("we'd tell you but it's too secret!"), the corrosive and pernicious nature of such justifications when they are revealed to be absolute bullshit makes it critical that any government official resorting to said evasion to protect what is otherwise a weakly-justified decision needs to be punished in the most public and visceral way to show that we (the Government) bears that public trust most seriously.
And then punch them in the face, knock them to the ground, and fire them - banning them from ever working for the government in ANY capacity, ever.
What are the odds that would happen?
As an American, I would love that to happen more here, too.
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What are the odds that would happen?
In the same country that has "super-injunctions" and doesn't find them funny or disgusting at all? Somewhere between zero and negative infinity.
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Well it couldn't happen as discussed, because _neither_ Ofcom nor the BBC are a function of government. Ofcom is government-approved (but not an arm of the government), and the BBC is wholly independent (with a constitution established by Royal charter, but not under Crown control).
Our government is wisely engineered almost totally out of this picture.
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In the same country that has "super-injunctions" and doesn't find them funny
I think anyone who watches Have I Got News For You finds them quite funny...
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...so if the government were headed with a real leader (ie instead of a toady to their special-interests), they would confront whoever was the HEAD of the board that made such a statement.
They could discuss the fact that while some government activities necessarily need such protections ("we'd tell you but it's too secret!"), the corrosive and pernicious nature of such justifications when they are revealed to be absolute bullshit makes it critical that any government official resorting to said evasion to protect what is otherwise a weakly-justified decision needs to be punished in the most public and visceral way to show that we (the Government) bears that public trust most seriously.
And then punch them in the face, knock them to the ground, and fire them - banning them from ever working for the government in ANY capacity, ever.
What are the odds that would happen?
As an American, I would love that to happen more here, too.
I think there's a rule somewhere which says you can't punch the Prime Minister.
Or did you have someone else in mind?
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...so if the government were headed with a real leader (ie instead of a toady to their special-interests), they would confront whoever was the HEAD of the board that made such a statement.
No.
It is antithetical to the very nature of the BBC for them to give in to government pressure. Ever.
Government Agency Lies (Score:3)
Not really surprised, is anyone? Probably lied for a reason, rather than out of laziness or bull-headed intransigence, but you'll either have to dig a bit more or ask yourself, "Who benefits from this lie?"
sleazy but the rights holders may be the victims (Score:3, Interesting)
"rights holders" == BBC (Score:2)
The story Cory's reporting about is the policies that BBC wants to set for its own programming, and is trying to force everybody else to support technically. It's especially obnoxious because the BBC's content is paid for by the license fees of British television and radio users, so it's trying to sell the public's own content back to the public. And it's especially frustrating because early on. the BBC announced that their policy towards the Internet would be to make everything available for free downloa
Mmm, anyone can find this story on the BBC itself? (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess this might finally convince those who think the BBC is unbiased about how wrong they are. The BBC has been caught out so many times in the past yet people continue to believe they are any more credible then Fox or Reuters. Unbiased != telling me what I want to hear.
Re:Mmm, anyone can find this story on the BBC itse (Score:5, Informative)
Right here [bbc.co.uk].
On this new Guardian piece? Not that I can see yet. But having read the piece, why would they? There's nothing new in it. The Guardian now get to add some quotation marks to exact wording for things which were all described before.
Worse, they quote plain-English paragraphs then paraphrase it and tell you what you should interpret from it. All supposition, opinion and subjectivity.
DRM on BBC broadcasts is an arse, but so is this article.
Re:Mmm, anyone can find this story on the BBC itse (Score:4, Interesting)
The BBC is more than willing to be incredibly critical of itself, if you'd have seen their coverage of the Hutton Inquiry, you would've known that. I've never seen any news agency quite so willing to cover news stories that damn themselves.
body or the subject (Score:2)
Reasons that spring to mind for such a flimsy case:
Is someone getting a future payoff (going to work for these 'rightsholders')?
Is someone just so crap at negotiating, they can't even understand that these US rightsholders don't use DRM in their own countries and so have no real leverage to insist on it elsewhere - admittedly, this would require incompetence of the highest order, but we are talking about BBC management, which has proven both spineless and ineffectual in any number of areas.
Regardless of the
Secret laws ... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I'm of the opinion that any law, regulation, or treaty which the public isn't allowed to know the specifics of should be null and void.
You simply can't have "secret laws" in a free society.
And, once again it seems the US-based media companies are trying to get laws abroad they can't have domestically. Then they'll point to those laws as something that needs to be done domestically in order to keep pace with the rest of the world.
At this rate, the "rights holders" will be the ones who dictate to us how technology can be used on the assumption that everything everybody does is "stealing" from them. (My god, two people could watch this show and nobody would know!!)
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The law itself, that broadcasters are required to use DRM for HD transmissions, is freely available from legislation.gov.uk . What is secret is the reasons the BBC gave to parliament as to why it should be implemented.
Re:Secret laws ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, in this case, this "non-disclosure agreement" was in direct contradiction to an existing EU law:
The fact that they tried to keep this secret because they had no really good defensible reason highlights the problems with it.
Your NDA can't spill into things affected by laws and policies that are written down.
Not so much DRM as receiver manufacturer lock-out (Score:5, Informative)
The technical issues behind this fracas are even more banal, and so trivial that it's already been reverse engineered. In effect, the "DRM" was purely a closed specification, and not a technological measure such as encryption.
Unsurprisingly, the specification has already been deployed in popular open-source projects.
For those interested, the technical extent of the "DRM" and "encryption" was the use of a pre-calculated Huffman table, which must be embedded in the receiver firmware, in order to obtain the programme guide.
It's a con trick (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a con trick by the BBC.
No-one wants DRM on the BBC's broadcasts; not even the BBC themselves. But many content providers, especially American ones, are trying to insist on it. So the BBC have devised a very clever way to con the content providers.
The trick is to put DRM into the broadcast version of the program guide, that tells you what is on when. This was announced with great fanfare as "the BBC is adding DRM to its broadcasts", with no mention of the small technical detail that the actual video and audio will have no DRM. So the content providers think that they have got their way, but there will be no impediment at all to (for example) capturing a broadcast off the air and making a torrent out of it. Articles like TFA are part of the con: they help convince the content providers that they have got what they want, which in turn induces them to sell stuff to the BBC that we might otherwise not see.
The commercial set-top-box manufacturers don't care, because they have to cater for genuine DRM on the commercial channels anyway. And the hobbyists who are running software such as MythTV don't care, because they download the program guide from the BBC website, which conveniently provides it in machine-readable form with no DRM.
Re:It's a con trick (Score:4, Interesting)
So let me get this straight... The BBC is deceiving the content providers, to protect the rights of it's consumers?
Do hamburgers eat people in the UK too?
I find it so strange... (Score:2)
Whether the tyrant is a corporate thug or a bloated bureaucrat, that jack boot goose-steps just the same. It is time for us to forever alter the conversations surrounding wealth, competition, social and global benefit, altruism and enlightened self interest. More important, just as we gave up slavery as an acceptable social practice, its time for us to give up political and economic blind self interest. Accommodating corporations of any type, at the expense of human justice is a crime against humanity.
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_secrets_privilege#Supreme_Court_recognition_in_United_States_v._Reynolds [wikipedia.org]
Re:What did you expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
They knew that the public would never go for it, so they hid the fact that they had no good reason for it. Sort of reminds me of Soviet-era secret trials, held using secret evidence - no evidence whatsoever is needed to do what you want, because it's 'too sensitive to release'!
Or your patriotic duty to believe the state when it tells you your ignorance is all for the best.
In Soviet Russia .. uh .. I dunno.
Re: (Score:2)
True, somebody's gotta do it...
Re: (Score:2)
Its not so much that someone's gotta do it, its that only one person needs to, and suddenly (thanks to services like Bit Torrent) it's now available to everyone.
This is why the entire concept is broken from the start. Even if the only way to record the video involves recording each and every pixel on the LCD Monitor its decrpyted to, frame for frame, you can bet someone, somewhere, will figure out how to do that. As long as its actually watchable, it's a
Re: (Score:2)
You don't have to be a statistician to know that the figures given there are largely worthless.
Imagine at your work you're in charge of ordering lunch for your department (maybe 300 people). You send out an email asking for suggestions and you get 10 responses back, 9 of which say "anything but Taco Bell". Apparently, your response to this would be to say "well, I'm sure that's not a representative sample so screw 'em" and order Taco Bell anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
For all you know, the 9 people may have been members of the "McRib appreciation club" and they could've eaten at Taco Bells but wanted to eat at McDonalds whereas the 1 had allergies which meant Taco Bell was the only option for him, it was that or he wouldn't be able to eat lunch.
A more apt example is sewage treatment plants. No one ever wants to have one near them so if you went by that, y
Re: (Score:2)
A sample of just over 1000 people is good enough to very accurately predict how people plan to vote at the next election, so 432 people is a big enough sample size to get a reasonable feeling about what people think. The fact that it is a self-selecting sample is of course a different matter. I suspect the vast majority would go for the "don't care as long as my tv/pvr work" option, but it does show that very few people actively support the idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Your last sentence probably explains the conclusion of the OFCOM inquiry. Few people get especially bothered by DRM, if they know it exists at all but lots would be affected by drops in budget for programs or for more expensive licencing deals.