Ofcom were approached back in 2009 by the BBC who were seeking permission to add “digital rights management” locks to their high-definition broadcasts. The idea was that these locks would scramble some of the information that is used to decode video, and the only way to get the de-scrambling key was for manufacturers to submit to the rules of the DTLA, an Intel led offshore consortium.
This was a very strange request from the BBC, and there certainly wouldn’t be any licence payers who were wishing that they could do less with the video, that was included in their licence fee, that the law allowed them to do. In its Freeview offerings, the BBC has always eschewed DRM, and many other public broadcasters in the US and Canada and Europe also eschew DRM.
DRM is prohibited on public broadcasts by German law, and American laws prohibit DRM on all broadcasts. Another problem was that the DRM scheme which the BBC proposed had 3 major flaws; first off the technological experts believed it would be easy to beat, secondly, the parts of the broadcasts the BBC wanted to scramble were shared by assistive audio tracks and closed captions that were used by the disabled.
The third problem was that the full rules that were set out by the DTLA for the DRM were governed by agreements of confidentiality, effectively meaning that manufacturers in the UK would have to comply to a set of secret rules that the public had no privy too.
Other major problems included the proposed violation of the EU by using foreign TV receivers and it also meant the freezing out of free and open source recorders and receivers from the UK market. The initial consultation had 459 responses, of which 432 were from individual licence payers, and of these 426 were oppositions to the BBC’s proposals.
26 different institutions filed 27 responses, with 2 of them coming from channel 4, and 17 supported their proposal. This included broadcasters, including 2 different divisions of
the BBC, ITV, channel 4 and channel 5, and a bunch of rights holder groups such as the Motion Picture Association which is run by US film studios and Pact, which is itself the DTLA, and some of the manufacturers who actually licenced the DTLA technology.
They made pretty unconvincing arguments too, it boiled down to the likes of “we would make more money this way” or “rights holders could boycott TV if they don’t get this”. Those institutions who opposed the proposition included the RNIB, a coalition of academics in computer science, the Linux Foundation and educators. Comments were also made on behalf of the UK Open Rights Group.
In a word, the licence fee paying public rejected the proposal overwhelmingly, as did independent scholars, educators, public interest groups and disabled rights groups. The most support came from the BBC, no surprise there, rights holders groups and broadcasters.
Dec
05
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Matthew Wright in hot water over comments
by Alan
Mr Wright was incorrectly informed that there had been no other murder investigation in the Western Isles for over 40 years. He proceeded to make a joke about this at the expense of the teenager and compared the investigation to a popular television show.
Later on in the same show he apologised on the air saying that he had not meant to make light of the tragedy. Many people have reported his comments to the regulator Ofcom and he said that people are taking everything too seriously. Even his apology drew more complaints as many people felt that he was not being sincere. There has now been calls from the public for the presenter to be taken off the air.
A recent statement from the Atchison family has said, “His comments were offensive and insensitive. It is not just insulting for the family but for all of the people on the Western Isles. We would like to urge anyone who knows anything about the murder of our son to come forward so that we can get justice.”
Kenny Anderson is the detective working the case and he has recently commented, “We’ve had a very good response in the community and we are working towards finding the murderer.” A spokeswoman from Channel 5 has commented, “Mr Wright has apologised and obviously meant no offence by his comments. He sees the murder as an incredibly serious matter and apologises for his words.”
Tags: Matthew Wright, Matthew Wright comments, Matthew Wright scandal
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