[Sderby] BBC iplayer pertition

[Darren Fuller]

On 03/07/07, J D Freeman <sderby at quixotic.org.uk> wrote:
>
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> On Tue, Jul 03, 2007 at 11:58:33AM +0100, Adam Armstrong wrote:
> > You claimed that the BBC was discriminating against you because you run
> > $nonstandard_os.
> >
> > The BBC is not discriminating against you, they've merely made a very
> > sensible commercial decision not to support your choice of operating
> > system. Much like they don't support the Amiga, OpenBSD, Solaris,
> > Commodore 64 or Oric Atmos.
> >
> > You speak as if you deserve, nay, that it is your inate right to have
> > access to the content on any platform you so chose. The BBC have chosen
> > Windows has the logical platform to supply the content on, as it hits
> > the widest possible audience.
> >
> > Just because you make non-standard choices, doesn't mean the world has
> > to bend to meet you. Such arguments are why people hate Unix/Mac users.
> > You have no rights. Once it's beneficial for people to care about you,
> > they will. Until then, you're the outsider. Live with it.
>
> Fantastic, now to offer for you a few corrections.
>
> Point 1: Not offering the iPlayer on anything other than windows is the
> equivilant of the following announcement:
>
> "as of next month, BBC TV programs will only be viewable on Sony
> televisions.
> We always aim to reach as many of our potential market as possible, and
> market research indicated that Sony has the highest market share on the
> world
> wide TV market."
>
> Point 2: There is no technical reason that the BBC should not support many
> OS's.  The BBC has one of the best research labs for video compression,
> they
> don't need to buy in MS, they have it all in house.
>
> Point 3: The BBC has a charter from Her Majesties government to provide
> information services to the the British people. As such, they are
> required by law to make their programming as accessable as possible.
> Which is why you will find they have programming for the deaf, etc...
>
> As such, by ignoring a large proportion of the populance, (about 10% of
> the populance use a unix based OS), they are failing their public duty.
> Whats more significiant here tho, is not just that linux and Mac aren't
> going to be supported, but neither is windows 98,me,2000,nt. Which
> between them account for another large proportion of the user base.
> Which results in the support for XP service pack 2 only, being actually
> a good deal less of the populance than you might think. Note, as of the
> last info I had, Vista wasn't supported properly either, yet.
>
> Now if you want to go out and fork out alot of money to watch the BBC's
> programming, spending several hundred pounds on an XP license, you are
> welcome to. However personally I feel the BBC has a public duty to not
> discriminate on its user base, and in releasing the iPlayer, they are
> doing just that.
>
> J
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Looking at it as well the content is DRM'd (http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/), what
is the point?  I can use my PVR to record programme in case I miss it and it
won't expire or I could record it to a DVD and again it wouldn't expire.

So in addition to restricting the number of people who can access the
content they're also limiting the amount of time it can exist on your
computer to 7 days.
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