Regulator Blocks BBC DRM Plans 177
TheRaven64 writes "The BBC's plans to introduce DRM for over-the-air digital broadcasts were today dealt a setback when the regulator, Ofcom, asked them the same question that has been asked of many DRM systems: 'How does this benefit the consumer?' The letter to the BBC is quoted in the article as saying that 'Ofcom received a large number of responses to this consultation, in particular from consumers and consumer groups, who raised a number of potentially significant consumer "fair use" and competition issues that were not addressed in our original consultation.' This does not end the chance of the BBC being allowed to introduce DRM in the future, but it at least delays their opportunity to do so."
BBC DVDs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Need Better Input Than This (Score:2, Interesting)
But, but, but HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC [wikipedia.org]!
Re:BBC should answer to society, not companies (Score:5, Interesting)
Piracy is a consequence.... (Score:3, Interesting)
An old quote from where I come from goes like this... "If you see abundance of money and wastefulness of resources, then understand that someone's legitimate right to those resources is being compromised".
Yes, art... like any other field should provide a given artist a stable income.
Yes, the artist worked hard, nonetheless, piracy is a consequence of someone who is finding it hard to pay the bills wanting something beyond his budget. On the other hand, a given (successful) artist who will probably feed generations with the wealth accumulated wants even more money.
On purely human grounds, I find something is wrong with this picture, very wrong.
Once the songs has been composed, the value-added component for every CD or MP3 they sell just doesn't add up to the price they charge consumers. Even if you take into account the effort and labor of composing the song, it still does not add up. This is something fundamental to a working capitalist society. Things should cost a fair price, media does not.
What exactly are the media giants selling, is it art... then why have I bought the same song in LP, Cassette, CD and now mp3s.
I can't put my finger on exactly what is wrong with this model.
IMO, this needs to be revisited to figure out how everyone gets their fair share, consumers and artists.
Re:Consumer? Pah. (Score:4, Interesting)
In the specific case of "rental", I'm always entertained by the comparison of the physical vs. the virtual world here. Specifically, the difference in distribution costs. Basically, rental makes no sense for the digital world in terms of distribution.
Think about it, the cost to download the content is the same whether you purchase it or rent it. The file would be the same one either way, basically. However, with rental, the price comes down because there's some sort of agreement or enforcement to make your copy expire in some fashion.
And if you consider it that way, it actually costs the retailer MORE for rental properties, as they now have to spend money on some kind of DRM scheme to enforce the time-based part of the contract. So the only reason for them to actually do this is volume; they'd have to get a significantly higher volume to make up for the price difference. If it's $3 to rent and $9 to buy, then they'd have to rent *over* three times as much as they'd sell, since there's also three times the bandwidth to be paid for now, as well as the costs of the DRM.
Streaming suffers from this even more, now you pay the bandwidth to transfer the content *every single time* it's viewed.
So why bother with rental at all?
What if, instead, they sold the content at the rental price (or just a hair above it)? Just sell a one-time download (possibly with a confirmation scheme to ensure the download finishes). No repeats, you don't gain ownership in the sense that you can redownload it indefinitely (you delete it, tough luck to you). $3 and you can download a copy and we're done, end of transaction.
Ideally, they'd sell as many as they'd rent in this case (probably more considering it's a "buy" and buyers will take advantage of the reduced costs). The bandwidth usage is basically the same as the rental model, there's no DRM scheme to deal with and no added costs to cope with there. Essentially, they'd be able to make more money this way. Possibly a lot more.
Separation of the market into rental and purchase *doesn't make any sense* in the digital realm. When you have actual physical product to transfer around, sure, that works. But when the cost of each is basically the same, then there's little point in separation based on a price.
Re:It benefits the consumer by... (Score:3, Interesting)
allowing BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, etc. to obtain the rights to show series and films that the rights holders will not allow them to show without content protection in the receiver.
Why do I want the BBC to be spending my licence fee on:
1. Development or licensing of DRM systems.
2. Broadcast of content which I cannot receive without buying a proprietary receiver (and thus paying another licence fee for the DRM system whilst giving me very limited choice on what equipment I use and which parts of my legal rights I can actually exercise).
3. "Premium" content you could get elsewhere anyway.
They should be investing this money in production of their own content, which wouldn't require crazy DRM anyway.
This would things like the HD versions of Hollywood films which the MPAA doesn't want people getting good digital copies of for free.
Those would be the films of which blueray rips were available for download months or years before the BBC show them anyway?
I find it strange that the BBC has been picked on for this, it is a condition imposed by the content rights holders and the BBC is only one of several companies involved in defining the broadcast platform specifications.
Not only does the BBC have a reasonable amount of bidding power (the BBC dropping out of the bidding wars would significantly reduce the profits made by the content producers selling to the UK), but they also have a mandate to make content available to as wide an audience as possible. As far as I can see, saying "you can only receive this content with this proprietary device" is in direct contradiction to that mandate. The broadcast content paid for by the licence fee has always been available at full quality through openly specified protocols/standards(*), there is no reason for this to change.
(* It is true that for some time the BBC's DVB-S transmissions were encrypted using VideoGuard due to territorial licensing issues. This hasn't been true for years since the move onto the restricted-footprint Astra 2D transponders, and that content was always available through other official means).
BBC covering their own backs (Score:5, Interesting)
The BBC board are not stupid, they know applying to have tax payer funded content restricted isnt going to fly. They are maneuvering to cover their backs. Despite what they say the BBC are very ratings focused. They are going head to head with ITV (the biggest independent TV station in the UK) over the Saturday night prime slot with their own reality TV/talent show for example.
They want to broadcast popular shows but dont want content restriction to be used as leverage by the content providers. Rather than saying "we wont do that b/c its not in the public interest" the BBC are aiming to say "We cant use DRM b/c its against the law."