Company presentation

Ofcom reveals that he is ready to give privileges to the U.S. TV companies can not get at home

In 2009 the BBC approached Ofcom for permission to add "digital rights management," the locks of your high-definition broadcasts. The locks that work to move some of the information used for video decoding, and to obtain the decryption key, manufacturers should be subject to the rules of the DTLA, a consortium led by Intel in the high seas.

It was a strange request from the BBC to do. No fertilizer, put a mark on the message of this year and I thought, "Gee, I wish there was a way I could do unless the law allows the video of my paid leave." The BBC has always avoided offering DRM in TNT, and other public broadcasters in Europe, USA and Canada to avoid DRM. German law prohibits the DRM in their broadcasts to the public, and U.S. law prohibits DRM

all

broadcasts both the commercial and noncommercial.

In addition, the DRM system proposed by the BBC had three major flaws: first specialists, engineers believed it would be trivial to defeat, on the other hand, the part of the question BBC wanted fight was shared by the subtitles and audio tracks support used by people with disabilities and finally, complete game rules by DTLA to DRM are governed by confidentiality agreements, which means that British manufacturers was ordered to comply with a set of secret rules that the public was not 't allowed to know.

There were other important issues, of course, the proposal violates the EU common market, breaking the foreign television receivers and receivers that meant popular free / open source and recorders would be excluded from the source device market in the UK.

The consultation received 459 responses. Of these, 432 of them from individual subscribers, and 426 opposed to the proposal from the BBC.

Twenty-six institutions presented 27 responses (Channel 4 responded twice), 17 of them supported the proposal. These include broadcasters (both divisions of the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Channel 5), many groups such as the copyright owner of the Motion Picture Association (managed by the U.S. movie studios) and the Covenant, the own DTLA, DTLA and some manufacturers licensed technology. The arguments were very low, boil down to "We want to make more money that way," and "rights holders may boycott the TV unless we give them that."

institutions contained an opposition coalition of academic computing and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), educators and the Linux Foundation. I wrote comments on behalf of the Open Rights Group in the UK.

In short, the license made public overwhelmingly rejected the proposal. So do independent scholars, public interest groups, educators and groups of disability rights. The vast majority of support from the BBC (which started all this, no surprise there!), Broadcasters and rights holder groups.

The BBC is a public television, and his letter states the obligation for all you do to respond to a "test of public value." Ofcom, the independent regulator which oversees the BBC, is accused of "[that] ensure that people in the UK make the most of their communication services and are protected against fraud and unfair practices, while ensuring that competition can develop. "

While Ofcom do? Of course, public opinion was heard, ignored the non-competitive research proposals a year in the commercial sector, in accordance with Community law, and rejected the proposal.

Well, that's what they did in a parallel universe. In

this

Ofcom

selfish world accepted the arguments of companies that are to be regularly ignore the public whose interests were intended to save, and gave to the BBC what 'he asked.

Why do this? It's a secret.

But no more.

stiffly BBC

comments from the BBC to Ofcom has published several articles have been written. These sections were held on the grounds that were "commercially sensitive" and could not be seen by the general public. Ray Corrigan, one of the academics at the Open University, which signed a contract for the comments against the computer scientists, filed a request for access to information to find out what the secret evidence. After all, there was nothing particularly compelling in the proposal from the BBC, so that the meat had to be real arguments there.

Ofcom rejected the call for freedom of information, saying the law prohibits the publication of "commercially sensitive" material. When asked if that meant that something might be out of public view for slapping a "commercially sensitive" label at first they said it was so. But the big question, his spokesman, wrote, "we believe the information on a case by case and consider the contents of any document to see if the exemption applies, instead of automatically selected because it is marked as "commercially sensitive. ""

Corrigan then tried to get information from the BBC. The BBC also declined to reveal. I exchanged several emails with a voice of tight-lipped. He refused to grant me an interview with Graham Plumb (head of the BBC's technology distribution) or any of his colleagues involved in the presentation. They sent this terse statement:

Ofcom report was submitted in confidence because it contained commercially sensitive information about the BBC, negotiations with rights holders. These negotiations are a common practice in commercial contracts agreements. These contracts allow the BBC to offer the public a greater variety of programs that would otherwise be possible.

The spokesman refused to specify or supplement this policy.

result, which is rare. Basically, the BBC and Ofcom said it was in the public interest to refuse the wishes of the public, but not in the public interest to know why this was so.

started asking around. One of the top-level executive with BBC Worldwide (the commercial arm, accused of selling BBC programs abroad) expressed amazement. "I do not understand why they want this certainly does not come from we do not need to be sold. Programming the BBC."

time, I have my hands on a copy.

tests revealed

These are "commercially sensitive" parts of the presentation of the BBC's Ofcom that the public has not seen so far:

1.4. The BBC confirms that it is very unlikely that the content was directly commissioned by the BBC (alone) would not be available for distribution on platforms that do not support content management. However, it should be noted that independent producers often retain secondary rights in such content. In the future, a powerful independent producer could insist that only accept a commission from the BBC under the conditions required by the BBC to ensure that the first (and possibly beyond) the transmission of this content is transmitted to the content management applied.

In this case, the BBC admits that all content that are available DRM-free commissions. In other words, things that we consider "the programming of the BBC" (as opposed to joint productions, independent boards and licensing programs from abroad) will be available even if the BBC is not to their desires.

can not understand why it would be "commercially sensitive". Why not inform the public that the BBC will not insist on restrictions on the video, the production of the fee paid?

The company assumed certain independent producers in the future to insist on DRM is downright laughable. If an Indian does not want to sell to the BBC launched a program in terms of the BBC wants, the BBC has commissioned another indie - as you would if you wanted to use an independent actor or a writer like the BBC or wanted more money than the BBC was willing to spend. India launches the request of the commissioners under the terms established and indie speculative, no name is not in these terms is a spectrum rather unconvincing.

1.5. The BBC wishes to emphasize that in trade negotiations with rights holders (and co-producers) of the BBC are generally more flexible to ensure the rights and less restrictive in the best possible price. In general, this flexibility is to allow the BBC to display the content of one or more times (s), sometimes more than one channel of the BBC and, ideally, the platforms of both distribution and without diffusion (eg BBC iPlayer). Inevitably, in these negotiations, the rights of content owners are looking to maximize their investment income and may try to increase the price of allowances based on the flexibility requested by the BBC.

Again, it is impossible to see why it would be "commercially sensitive" to admit that some rights-holders and partners asking for more money when DRM is not implemented. It is also impossible to see why Ofcom would take very seriously: the BBC is not saying that

pay more

non-DRM conditions, like most

control

. This is not a anaecdote test.

1.6. The highest value obtained content, such as the rights of the first issue of the UK free-to-air films or TV series Popular, are significantly more likely to be restricted. For example, in the recent negotiations between the BBC and (separately) companies HBO, Sony Pictures Television International, 20th Century Fox Television and Warner Brothers International Television Distribution International, each of these suppliers has made it clear that individually are not willing to provide the BBC HD linear broadcast rights to certain content with high value unless the BBC is committed to implement the content management controls all HD programming such content.

Aha! Finally, the BBC name a few. Unfortunately, these names are not very convincing.

demand for DRM, but the fact of the matter is that when they have no other option, which do not emit DRM. If Ofcom does not give them this option, there is no reason to think that they will behave differently here than they do at home in the United States.

But the BBC will not get new content from HBO for broadcast over the next 10 years, since HBO has an exclusive, 10 years with Sky.
The exception to this is the BBC-HBO co-production - essentially, the BBC says they have no control over the programs that are paid with our money. It is a shame, but it is difficult "commercially sensitive".

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