[SWLUG] New protest and petition against BBC's Windows-only iPlayer

[Steve Hill]

On Fri, 3 Aug 2007, Julian Hall wrote:

> Having said that, even Bill Gates has gone on record saying DRM is not
> up to the job.  That being the case, why on earth are we still stuck
> with it?

I suspect because the people in charge are so scared that 
something is better than nothing, even if that something is largely 
ineffective.  It also seems that they ignore how many customers the are 
alienating in the process.

It would be nice to see an independent cost analysis of money lost due to 
copyright infringement of un-DRM'd content (taking into account that some 
of the infringers wouldn't have bought the content anyway if they had to 
pay for it) verses money lost due to the cost of the DRM system, lost 
customers, people who are still infringing since the DRM system is pretty 
useless and people who are having to infringe *because* of the DRM on the 
legit content.

> A thought that just occurred.  British Law guarantees assumption of
> innocence *until proven otherwise*.  Is there then not an argument to
> say that implementation of DRM which assumes guilt, is illegal in concept?

I'm not a lawyer, but I would assume the presumption of innocence only 
applies to legal proceedings.  For example, if I own a pub and a fight 
starts, I can make the assumption that all parties involved are guilty and 
kick them all out - no presumption of innocence would be necessary since 
I'm not starting legal proceedings.  And if I were to start legal 
proceedings it could be said that I am assuming guilt - it's the people 
involved with the legal system who must assume innocence.

-- 

  - Steve
    xmpp:steve at nexusuk.org   sip:steve at nexusuk.org   http://www.nexusuk.org/

      Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence