BBC introducing DRM by the back door
Sep. 16th, 2009 01:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciphergothBoingBoing: BBC wants to put DRM on the TV Brits are forced to pay for
My letter:
Sir: with regard to this proposal:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/tvlicensing/enquiry/ofcom_bbc.pdf
This appears to be an attempt to contravene the spirit of the requirement that BBC broadcasts be free-to-air. The spirit of this requirement is only intact while fully-featured open source PVR software such as MythTV, which I use, remains possible, something that this agreement would prevent.
It can hardly be a surprise that content owners would prefer that the BBC find some way around this requirement, but if the BBC are to be released from it, it must at the very least be done explicitly, above board, after a public debate of a decent length. This end-run is unacceptable.
My letter:
Sir: with regard to this proposal:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/tvlicensing/enquiry/ofcom_bbc.pdf
This appears to be an attempt to contravene the spirit of the requirement that BBC broadcasts be free-to-air. The spirit of this requirement is only intact while fully-featured open source PVR software such as MythTV, which I use, remains possible, something that this agreement would prevent.
It can hardly be a surprise that content owners would prefer that the BBC find some way around this requirement, but if the BBC are to be released from it, it must at the very least be done explicitly, above board, after a public debate of a decent length. This end-run is unacceptable.
