[YLUG] BBC DRM protest in Manchester

[Arthur Clune]

On 3 Aug 2007, at 10:57, Noah Slater wrote:

>
> I could find no record of any mandate to make money abroad - the only
> mention of international operations in the charter is to provide a
> world service, which is provided for free.


Let me re-phrase then. The BBC's charter is about the UK + the World
Service. Other operations are there to make money to support those
e.g. selling The Office to the US. It's reasonably clear why the
BBC worries about how that will play out if they stream it with
no restrictions.

> However, DRM is by it's very nature a set of restrictions that harm
> public interest. It has been shown many times that DRM does not
> prevent piracy - all it does is inconvenience your average user. [1]

I'd agree with this, but that's a different argument. If the BBC
could produce a cross platform drm the argument about availability
to license payers goes away.

> There are many places in the charter which expressively forbid this
> kind of action that will harm accessibility of the content and the
> public interest in general.
>
> Excerpted from the Royal Charter from 1 January 2007 [2]:
>
>     "The BBC exists to serve the public interest. "
>
> Excerpted from the Agreement from 1 January 2007[3]:
>
>     "[The BBC's public purpose is to stimulate] interest in, and  
> knowledge
>     of, a full range of subjects and issues through content that is  
> accessible
>     and can encourage either formal or informal learning;"
>
>     "The BBC must do all that is reasonably practicable to ensure that
>     viewers, listeners and other users (as the case may be) are  
> able to
>     access the UK Public Services that are intended for them, or
>     elements of their content, in a range of convenient and cost  
> effective
>     ways which are available or might become available in the future.
>     These could include (for example) broadcasting, streaming or  
> making
>     content available on-demand, whether by terrestrial, satellite,  
> cable or
>     broadband networks (fixed or wireless) or via the internet."

I see nothing in this that says 'shall not use DRM'. Note the words
'reasonably practicable', 'intended for them' and 'cost effective'.

I think Dave Berkeley made a very good point earlier:

> What we have on this website is an attack on DRM. I think that it  
> is best to
> separate the two issues. You are more likely to win the simpler  
> "access for
> all" case, but attacking DRM will probably just get people's backs  
> up. That
> debate needs to be had, and people need convincing, but I don't  
> think that it
> helps in the BBC case.

That puts it very nicely. Conflating two different issues really doesn't
help.

Arthur