Save Aunty from DRM
p2pnet.net news:- Britons and other fans of the BBC around the world fear the cherished national radio broadcasting service, lovingly known as Aunty and which kept spirits alive during World War II, may finally be killed —– by DRM.
“We are deeply concerned about the BBC’s use of ‘Digital Rights Management’ (DRM) to manage content delivered to users over the Internet,” says Free The BBC, a campaign created by The Binary Freedom Press Office and Binary Freedom Boston, with help from Defective By Design.
“There are dozens of arguments against DRM, however we believe these are the most important and relevant to the BBC.”
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1. DRM simply doesn’t work.
Producers of DRM technology tell copyright holders that DRM will protect their content from unauthorized copying and commercial piracy. This is completely false. All DRM systems, including new technologies like HD-DVD and Blu-ray, have been circumvented. DRM relies on users not knowing an encryption key that is widely distributed to devices that play content. Cracking DRM is then as simple as discovering the encryption key. In such a situation, the entire DRM system is circumvented and the argument to “protect copyrighted materials” is removed. In addition, many programs that may use DRM are already broadcast over-the-air and this content can easily be converted into unprotected digital format. Even if DRM worked it would not protect BBC content.
DRM’s defectiveness, is part of the reason that Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, called on the music industry to release DRM-free music. (”Thoughts on Music”, February 6, 2007)
2. DRM strips consumers of their rights.
By using DRM, the BBC is telling users that they are criminals. DRM assumes that a user will use the content they are provided with to violate copyright law and in response strips users of their normal consumer rights. In the United Kingdom, the fair dealing privilege is meant to provide an exception to copyright for “private study and criticism and review and news reporting” (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 s. 29, 30). DRM makes it illegal to extract portions of a work for criticism or review. Fair dealing is meant to allow, among other things, private copies for research purposes, or extraction of portions for a film review. DRM attempts to make both of these impossible, thereby depriving citizens of rights guaranteed to them by British law. Other countries, such as the United States, grant similar rights under other fair dealing or fair use doctrines. The BBC would also be similarly depriving citizens of those countries of their statutory rights.
Since the BBC is a public corporation, it should be acting in the interest of the general public. Any action that removes the rights of the general public is not acting in their interest.
3. DRM directly violates the BBC Royal Charter.
The BBC royal charter establishes a number of goals and operating conditions including “promoting education and learning”, “stimulating creativity and cultural excellence”, and “bringing the UK to the world”. DRM runs contrary to all of these purposes. DRM limits education by restricting copying for public educational purposes, and even inhibits private study. It stifles creativity by trying to make even incidental remixing impossible. Finally, it arbitrarily limits the BBC’s reach by forcing viewers to use particular proprietary software applications. DRM advances corporate interests over the public interest, which is in flagrant opposition to the charter.
4. DRM is a poor business decision.
If people are unable to take content they have purchased and use it for their own personal purposes, then they will choose other locations to receive that content. This is one of the reasons why EMI recently agreed to sell their music without DRM.
Additionally, the data is formatted to restrict access to Windows users. The BBC has decided to release content under the Windows Media Format. The Windows Media Format (WMF) is a proprietary system. As licenses for other operating systems are not available, users have to buy Microsoft Windows. This choice would restrict BBC content to a portion of the population, excluding users of operating systems such as GNU/Linux (which is powering the one laptop per child system). The BBC is also considering the use of REAL media, which has players for other operating systems. However, REAL is still unacceptable, because there are no libre/open source software that can play REAL media with DRM. This is an insurmountable problem common to all DRM systems. The BBC is a public corporation and its funding comes from public sources. If people pay for a service, they should only have to pay for it once. With WMF, REAL, and DRM, they are having to pay twice (once to have the content created and once to have it shown to them through WMF or REAL). In addition, since both systems require particular proprietary software applications, BBC is in effect subsidizing unrelated private enterprises.
5. The Industry has Ditched it
The media industry is already stopping the use of DRM. Apple iTunes, Amazon Music, PBS, C-SPAN, NPR, and many other large media outlets will soon offer DRM-free content or already offer it. Seeing as this is the way the industry is moving, it is an irresponsible use of public funds to force the use of a technology the industry is moving away from.
In conclusion, DRM is not the right path for the BBC to take. DRM violates the royal charter, attacks users, adds cost to production, subsidizes private enterprises, and simply does not work. We urge you to drop all plans to lock away content with DRM and to choose public interest instead. This is an issue of viewer’s rights, free culture and the future of the BBC. Please respect the public interest, and your viewer interests, by not using DRM.
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
