Round up Thursday 12 November 2009
Post categories: round up
| 10:03 UK time, Thursday, 12 November 2009
Everytime we sit down to write a weekly round-up someone somewhere says "No" to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ. This week it's the turn of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ HD and to do the dance of refusal.
As HD sagas on the Internet blog go the is pretty tame compared to the HD PQ ruction. The :
Ofcom has rejected the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's request to introduce anti-piracy technology to Freeview to limit the illegal copying of high-definition TV shows, until issues raised by organisations including the Open Rights Group are addressed.
So this may be a pause rather than a wall of refusal. Regular readers of comments on the Internet blog (and I would hope that's all of you as some of the best stuff happens in the comments) may enjoy , on the aforementioned Guardian story.
, who along with propelled the story to prominence, was although it may be too soon to say that the "ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's outrageous plan" has been "shot down in flames". Nevali on Tumbled Logic "I don't attribute this to malice, incidentally..."
The upgrade to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's sign in system has been rolled out across the blogs. Some people have reported problems but it was gratifying to see a few kind words on (last acronyms for this week I promise).
Ben Chapman of Radio 1 talks about how the station uses social media
And finally, the Internet blog is gratified to learn that we're . So thank you all for reading and commenting on the blog.
Paul Murphy is the Editor of the Internet blog.
Comment number 1.
At 12th Nov 2009, The Phazer wrote:Sadly an awful lot of my replies to Cory Doctorow's articles and lack of factual rigour are deleted by the Guardian. That piece of his was remarkable in that it gets very nearly every fact in it wrong.
Phazer
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 12th Nov 2009, PlatinumPlatypus wrote:Why don't the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ accept that the public do not want DRM on Freeview and stop trying to go against us?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)
Comment number 3.
At 12th Nov 2009, TV Licence fee payer against ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ censorship wrote:#2. At 2:12pm on 12 Nov 2009, CompactDistance wrote:
"Why don't the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ accept that the public do not want DRM on Freeview and stop trying to go against us?"
Because the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ wants top have the option to show 'commercial' content, perhaps?... I'm sure that the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ would not be trying to go down the DRM route if they themselves were not having their arms twisted by the HD content providers.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 3)
Comment number 4.
At 12th Nov 2009, The Phazer wrote:"Why don't the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ accept that the public do not want DRM on Freeview and stop trying to go against us?"
Who are "the public"? I'm the public, and I'd much rather have a broadcast flag on Freeview than lose shows that I'd otherwise get to see or the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ hence have to pay a heap of extra money for.
And I very much suspect that a vote of the entire population of those options, given 99.9999% of people will just be buying boxes from Dixons which will hence give them no issues whatsoever, would agree with me by an enormous margin.
It's the iPlayer arguement all over again. iPlayer (even streamed) can be considered DRMed up to the hilt much more than this proposal. People here said it was doomed to failure. They were wrong. And if you asked the public if they'd rather have an Β£800 licence fee, or much less (i.e the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ make a tenth of what it does now for the same price) content, or have the iPlayer window restricted to seven days using any technical measures the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ can, then they will pick the technical restriction measures.
Phazer
Complain about this comment (Comment number 4)
Comment number 5.
At 12th Nov 2009, Mo McRoberts wrote:Exceptβ¦Μύthatβs not quite how it is.
Stop thinking in terms of the proposal as some kind of anti-piracy measure; it isnβt. In a very real sense (I really canβt stress this enough), itβs no more effective than the anti-piracy warnings at the beginning of DVDs: the only people who it actually affects are those who had no intention of infringing copyright in the first place. Those who are intent on flouting the law from the outset can reverse-engineer the scrambling (itβs really not that difficult). The nasty side-effect is that placing restrictions which are counter to past behaviours (which while not enshrined in law as rights, do afford a certain expectation of preservation) encourages those who would otherwise operate entirely legitimately to become βcasual piratesβ.
[Some clarification is due here, because thereβs some confusion: the people who upload infringing content to P2P networks are not βcasual piratesβ by any means; the people who download from them often are, however. What this means in real terms is that technical measures applied to the broadcast chain actually has no beneficial effect upon infringement via P2P networks, because those measures can be trivially defeated by those making the stuff available].
Thus, weβre left with several issues:
One is an anti-piracy measure which only inconveniences legitimate users and innovators, but does nothing to prevent actual infringement.
Another is the fact that rights-holders are asking for thisβpresumably in the belief that it will βhelpβ (even though past experience has quite clearly shown that it will likely achieve the precise opposite).
And finally, thereβs the issue that one of the most technically competent and forward-thinking PSBs in the world is complicit in this.
Now, you can argue the impact of the first issue until youβre blue in the face. One aspect is inescapable, and thatβs that the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔβs regime is set out along certain key principles which haveβrightlyβremained unchanged for decades, and the proposed measures fly in the face of them.
The second one is extremely worrying: how are content providers so disconnected from reality? This also leads into the third, in that one would expect the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, with its vast knowledge and expertise, to have pointed out the folly of it. The US providers, certainly, know exactly what the score is, because this whole debate raged in the US TV world for a while before it was slapped down.
Instead, there has been an attempt to slip a proposal past the regulator in the hope that the public wouldnβt notice and the regulator would be too realise the implications stupid to block it. Then, content providers would be able to sign on the dotted line to supply content for ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ HD with a vastly increased audience share, in the mistaken belief that theyβd made some effort to protect it: in reality, theyβd done no such thing.
So, which would you rather: our PSBs and regulators stick to their principles and risk some of the content providers not signing on the dotted line, or that they dish out misinformation to both the public and the CPs, despite the fact that all of those responsible for actually implementing it, as well as the would-be pirates, know perfectly well itβs a worthless, costly, inconvenience for consumers?
Ultimately, itβs in the hands of the regulator. The public could have send hundreds of letters to Ofcom complaining that the proposals would infringe upon their rights to become Jedi Knights, but it wouldnβt mean that Ofcom would pay any attention to them because the arguments are clearly irrelevant. In this case, Ofcom hasnβt yet made the decisionβbut for the time being, the status quo has been preserved. I make no apology whatsoever for hoping that remains the case; itβs vastly preferable to the alternative.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 5)
Comment number 6.
At 12th Nov 2009, PlatinumPlatypus wrote:The_Phazer- Pirates will get around it, as they always do. The only people who suffer are the genuine users. Why stand up for this?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 6)
Comment number 7.
At 12th Nov 2009, TV Licence fee payer against ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ censorship wrote:#6. At 5:37pm on 12 Nov 2009, CompactDistance wrote:
"The_Phazer- Pirates will get around it, as they always do. The only people who suffer are the genuine users. Why stand up for this?"
Because the commercial content providers want it, and the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ want to have commercial content to broadcast, yes the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ could take a high and mighty stance but then the only people, who are suffering is everyone - ask most people and they will be happy with DRM 'protected' content if the choice is that or nothing, all you are suggesting is like cutting your own nose off to spite someone else's face!
Complain about this comment (Comment number 7)
Comment number 8.
At 13th Nov 2009, PlatinumPlatypus wrote:Boilerplated- I happen to think that if the content creators suddenly stopped having their content bought from them their opinion on this matter might become a tad more lenient.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 8)
Comment number 9.
At 14th Nov 2009, HD wrote:So if there's no use of the "broadcast flag" in America, why does the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ want something like it here?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 9)
Comment number 10.
At 17th Nov 2009, _Ewan_ wrote:There is no reason for DRM on Freeview HD; while the programme makers might threaten to take their balls home if it doesn't happen, they won't actually do it. They didn't do it in the US when the 'Broadcast Flag' was ruled illegal there, they didn't do it here when Freesat HD launched with no DRM, and they didn't even do it over the DRM free Flash based iPlayer.
They won't do it, because they know there's no point in closing one door while so many others remain wide open - if you could make Freeview HD's DRM absolutely 100% watertight (and you can't) it still wouldn't help because uploaders would simply go to one of the DRM free alternative sources, as they do now.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 10)
Comment number 11.
At 27th Mar 2010, U14390976 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 11)
Comment number 12.
At 12th May 2010, U14460911 wrote:All this user's posts have been removed.Why?
Complain about this comment (Comment number 12)