BBC iPlayer is now DRM Free!
On the BBC Backstage list last night, it was announced that the BBC iPlayer released its Flash version last night, and I am very happy to see that it is DRM free!
Sadly, this may not last.
The Flash Media Server 3 was released last month, and Tom Loosemore linked to a PC Pro article that mention the BBC will be moving to FMS3 shortly. Sean Daly noted that “DRM is central to Adobe’s pitch to broadcasters.”
I am afraid that when the BBC uses FMSv3, it will force the DRM back on to people.
Also, it doesn’t yet work with Gnash at all, although I hope that will change shortly. The most excellent James Cridland has a screenshot of it running with the proprietary Adobe Flash player, making it all the more tantalizing! :-)
Once it does work with Gnash, the next problem will be that it uses patent encumbered media formats. I guess this means that Fedora’s version of Gnash will be unable to play it, for example. (Sadly no one I’ve spoken to in the BBC is convinced about using the Xiph formats. I ought to make a decent post about this some time.)
The other thing, which I mentioned in my recent longer post on the iPlayer, is that this is a streaming service, not a download service. There is a subtle bias in the concept of streaming that I don’t like: The idea of viewing instead of storing data.
There are minor legal problems with streaming. To play videos available through the streaming iPlayer on any offline computer - like a handheld computer meant for playing video like an Archos or iPod - you’ll probably need to break the Terms of Service (I don’t know for sure, I haven’t read them).
Today, the DRM-laden download iPlayer does store video on people’s own computers, making the restrictions more tantalizing and obvious to non-experts: They can realise and imagine, totally by themselves, that things could be different - that they could transfer the video file to their other computers, or watch it offline.
When the option to do this isn’t there, people don’t only think that its not possible - they forget you would even want to! When Christopher Woods raised this point on the Backstage list, Sebnem Oeztunali replied “Don’t you just need to hit the “play again” button for subsequent viewing in a flash player?” which is a perfect example of this.
Trying to get people to figure out for themselves why DRM is awful is key, I think. I have asked people, “Why can’t you copy music from your iPod to your computer? You know it is a portable harddisk, like the one on your desk for your backups, right? So why not?â€
Now I’ll ask them, “Why can’t you watch the iPlayer on your laptop when you are not online?”
The BBC iPlayer is now DRM Free! by David Crossland, except the quotations and unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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Trying to get people to figure out for themselves why DRM is awful is key, I think.
Well…
I can watch or listen to anything I want to on the iPlayer just by hitting ‘play’ - on anything that has Flash on it. Additionally, I can download anything I want to on the (TV) iPlayer, as long as I run Windows and MSIE, like 85-90% of the UK, and watch it later, though I can’t transfer it or anything like that.
The download is only possible because of the DRM that the rights-holders insist on - given the choice between download-with-DRM or no-download-at-all, I’d rather be able to download files if I can. (It should be boringly pointed out that no, the BBC doesn’t have the complete rights on its programmes - that would be prohibitively expensive).
Most people want a product that “just works”; and even with DRM, for many people the iPlayer “just works”. If you’re asking to get rid of the download option altogether because it has the horror of DRM on it, I’m not sure that it’s the best idea; but clearly, if nobody uses the download service any more then we’ll all know, won’t we? ;)
In relation to your two questions:
“Why can’t you copy music from your iPod to your computer? You know it is a portable harddisk, like the one on your desk for your backups, right? So why not?†But you can…
“Why can’t you watch the iPlayer on your laptop when you are not online?†But you can…
Hi, there was a limitied understanding, I think: Dave was raising the download vs. streaming point: “..he doesn’t want to download anything beforehand unlike me, where I actually want to download the videos before I watch because they’re saved on my PC then for subsequent viewing…”
An I pointed out that there is a “play again” button for “subsequent viewing”
Considering DRM both streams and downloads can be intercepted and the DRM cracked for piracy purposes… But if it is so easy to watch online why should anybody bother to buy pirate-DVDs on the street - hence, where there is no demand there is no market for piracy, hence no need for DRM…
The music market is catching the clue train finally: that all you need is to provide an easy payment and a play button, then people stop to go through the hassle of finding friends who know how to find a bittorrent tracker and use it….