p2pnet - rss feed: BBC with DRM
p2pnet news | tv:- “On July 27th 2007 the BBC are releasing a new ‘on demand’ service called iPlayer as a public beta,” emails Alex Hanff.
He points out that Aunty, or the Beeb, as Britain’s famous national broadcaster is also known, is a publicly funded body governed by Royal Charter.
Nor is it free, as is popularly thought. The British public pay for it thorugh a tv licence, says Hanff.
“All people in the UK with a device capable of receiving a broadcast television signal are required by the Broadcasting Act 1990 to purchase a Television Licence and anyone found to be receiving broadcasts without a licence are subject to a maximum fine of £1000 (GBP),” he says.
That’s about $C2,137, $US2,049 or EUR1,484.
He goes on >>>>>
Despite the fact that the new iPlayer service has been funded by these Television Licence Fees, the BBC have chosen to exclude 100s of thousands of TV Licence holders from using the iPlayer service by restricting it to the Microsoft Windows XP platform using Windows Media Player’s DRM system.
This has provoked a huge response from the public and currently there is a 10 000 strong official Prime Minister’s ePetition calling for the government to intervene.
In an attempt to further the campaign, I’ve launched a Public Letter Writing Campaign with the goal of matching the 10 000 signatures on the petition by sending 10 000+ letters to each of 4 government and public bodies. You can read more about the BBC on my blog here.
And you can access information on the letter writing campaign as well asdownload the template letters here.
If you’re a British citizen please make the effort to download the letters, add your own details and post them. Also we need as much publicity on this issue as possible, so please Digg the blog and add links to your websites, social network sites and anywhere else which will increase the exposure of the campaign.
Thank you
Alexander Hanff
Stay tuned.
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July 20th, 2007 at 4:54 am
Not everyone pays the BBC TV Licence in fact the people they send round are nothing but salespeople on commission with no real powers
July 20th, 2007 at 9:06 am
I wish I could choose not to recive BBC channels and not pay them £135 a year for cheap low budget programing.
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:40 am
I hate the TV licence idea. I help people getting around this dumb law. I also advise people how to use harassment laws to stop the TV licence little hitllers coming around.
Now I do not think BBC should :-
1) Have sold as subscription service.
2) Have TV adds.
3) Pay by TV lincence.
4) Pay government thought Tax’s.
I have revolutioal idea.
TV broadcasters should be Tax, say at 10% on all add’s, on all items sold on channels like boring QVC, phone in’s, etc
July 22nd, 2007 at 8:14 am
yes, let the tv broadcasters pay! That means another 5 minutes of commercials during your 30 minute show