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[News] BBC's Tax/Web Abuse with DRM Can Lock Out Free Software Users

  • Subject: [News] BBC's Tax/Web Abuse with DRM Can Lock Out Free Software Users
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:39:36 +0100
  • Followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • User-agent: KNode/4.3.1
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Help Save the BBC from HDTV DRM

,----[ Quote ]
| As Watson rightly points out, if this scheme is adopted it is 
| highly unlikely free software projects will be able to obtain the 
| appropriate keys, for the simple reason that they are not 
| structured in a way that allows them to enter into the 
| appropriate legal agreements (not least because they couldn't 
| keep them). Of course, it will probably be pretty trivial for 
| people to crack the encryption scheme, thus ensuring that the 
| law-abiding free software users are penalised, while those 
| prepared to break the law are hardly bothered at all.
`----

http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2523&blogid=14

DTT High Definition Licence

,----[ Quote ]
| Objection to BBC and Ofcom's consultation seeking to allow 
| encryption of key HD TV data including progamme information that 
| would restrict consumer use of devices and distort the market 
| against the public interest
`----

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ourwork/reports/dtt


Recent:

BBC Worldwide Merging with Microsoft?

,----[ Quote ]
| Against this background:
|
|    BBC Worldwideâs digital sales and business development head Peter
|    Mercier is leaving to be Microsoftâs content acquisitions and strategy
|    senior director - the latest in the revolving HR door between the two
|    companies.
|
|    ...
|
|    BBCWW hired Mercier from MobiTV as head of mobile in 2007 before he got
|    a wider digital role in â08. Ashley Highfield left as CEO of BBCWWâs
|    Kangaroo JV last year. Microsoftâs UK online services group VP Chris
|    Dobson went the other way to be BBCWWâs WVP and GM of global ad sales,
|    leading BBC.com ad sales in particular; he later took two BBCWWers with
|    him.
|
| Rather than try to cover up the symbiotic relationship between the two
| organisations, wouldn't it just be simpler if they merged them together
| now? At least then there wouldn't be any pretensions of independence by the
| BBC Worldwide...
`----

http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/09/bbc-worldwide-merging-with-microsoft.html


Related:

The BBC's iPlayer Goes to Parliament, by Sean Daly

,----[ Quote of one comment ]
| Mr Thompson did his best to not answer
| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 20 2008 @ 08:25 PM EST
| It sure seems like Mr Thompson avoided directly answering any of the
| questions put to him by Dr Pugh.
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080120181708684


BBC Director General grilled by MPs on iPlayer

,----[ Quote ]
| During the meeting there is discussion of iPlayerâs total cost to the licence
| fee-payer - the BBC representatives are unable to give a figure, but start
| the bidding at Â20m, excluding staff costs. Thomson gives incorrect
| information - that Mac and Linux versions of iPlayer have the same
| functionality as Windows versions - and has to change his evidence at the
| end. Perhaps it was this confusion that prompted Dr John Pugh MP to follow up
| the encounter with a letter direct to Mark Thomson today discussing platform
| neutrality in greater detail. A copy of this letter has been passed to the
| Open Rights Group.
`----

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/01/10/bbc-director-general-grilled-by-mps-on-iplayer/


BBC Corrupted

,----[ Quote ]
| Today the BBC made it official -- they have been corrupted by Microsoft. With
| today's launch of the iPlayer, the BBC Trust has failed in its most basic of
| duties and handed over to Microsoft sole control of the on-line distribution
| of BBC programming. From today, you will need to own a Microsoft operating
| system to view BBC programming on the web. This is akin to saying you must
| own a Sony TV set to watch BBC TV. And you must accept the Digital
| Restrictions Management (DRM) that the iPlayer imposes. You simply cannot be
| allowed to be in control of your computer according to the BBC.
`----

http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/BBCcorrupted


BBC iPlayer Protests

,----[ Quote ]
| Who are the people responsible for creating this mess?
|
|     * Mark Thompson, BBC director general (DG)
|     * Erik Huggers, group controller at BBC Future Media & Technology
|     * Ashley Highfield, director of new media and technology
|
| Right now, there is very considerable concern within the BBC that the actions
| of the Director General and his team are sending the corporation in the wrong
| direction. The BBC has been embroiled in a number of recent controversies,
| all linked back to the DG's leadership.
`----

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/iPlayerProtest


Why Linux Users Should Be Furious At BBC

,----[ Quote ]
| Recently the BBC had a bit of a wake up call regarding numbers and how many
| Linux users were really out there. Why does any of this matter? It has to do
| with something the BBC provides called the iPlayer. Seriously, relying on
| ActiveX is so "1990's" that it's painful, and as luck would have it, the
| Linux users who wish to use this BBC player made sure that the BBC knew that
| they were making the sought after content inaccessible to those people using
| Linux.
|
| No iPlayer for Linux Users, But There Will Be An Alternative. Based on what I
| have been able to gather thus far, it looks like we will see an Adobe Flash
| option coming out soon. Then again, who really cares? Seriously, if the BBC
| is this foolish to ignore how much Linux growth is taking place both in the
| UK as well as the surrounding countries, then maybe people ought to be
| looking elsewhere? Is it because this is indeed, the BBC? So there is the
| belief that this is the people's media? Up until now, I enjoyed much of what
| the BBC had to offer, but this entire thing is enough to have pushed me away.
`----

http://www.osweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2731&Itemid=449


Beeb slammed for 'fawning' to Bill Gates

,----[ Quote ]
| BBC viewers have flooded the corporation with complaints over how it
| covered the launch of Microsoft Vista earlier this week.
|
| In one cringingly servile interview worthy of Uriah Heep, the
| Beeb's news presenter Hugh Edwards even thanked Gates at the
| end of it, presumably in appreciation at being allowed to give
| the Vole vast coverage for free.
|
| In other TV news items presenters excitedly explained how Vistac
| ould be obtained and installed - details courtesy of the BBC's
| website.
|
| But British viewers, currently forced to pay a Â131.50 licence
| fee to maintain the BBC's "impartiality", were less than impressed.
|
| Scores got in touch to complain that so much was Auntie up Bill's
| bum that you could barely see her corset.
`----

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37411


http://slated.org/bbc_microsoft_bias


BBC: Death by a thousand top-slices

,----[ Quote ]
| So it looks like the end of the unique, state-centric model for funding the
| BBC. An incoming Conservative administration is unlikely to be more
| sympathetic to the BBC, with its stifling bureucracy and monopoly control
| over a compulsory tax.
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/18/bbc_top_slicing/
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