DefectiveByDesign: London and Manchester Calling

Filed under: Video, Web services, Apple, Microsoft

DefectiveByDesign: London and Manchester Calling

by Nik Fletcher Aug 13th 2007

British readers be warned: the Free Software Foundation's Defective by Design campaign is coming to our side of the pond tomorrow in protest at the BBC's decision to make extensive use of DRM (and in particular MIcrosoft's DRM) in their beta iPlayer software. For those who are unaware of the iPlayer, the BBC is making its programmes available for 'catch-up' via the iPlayer - albeit only for 7 days after download.

The issue is certainly an interesting (and contentious) one, particularly as the BBC is a publicly-funded body so has to make the iPlayer platform neutral at some point in the future, and will only allow U.K. IP addresses access to the content. The protests are outside the BBC's London and Manchester studios tomorrow (Tuesday 14th August), with Download Squad paying the London gathering a visit.

Tags: BBC, Digital Rights Management, DigitalRightsManagement, DRM, FSF, Windows Media, WindowsMedia

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

TipsoSaurus said 12:39PM on 8-13-2007

Can we expect a video of your visit???

Nik Fletcher said 3:38PM on 8-13-2007

Tiposaurus,

There won't be any video, but there will definitely be photos!

hazard said 11:54PM on 8-13-2007

I'd say it's less about corruption and more about ignorance and people sticking to what they know. Really the best outcome for Microsoft would have been to implement the player with Sliverlight.

SB Streater said 9:24AM on 8-15-2007

I have made a video of the event!
http://clesh.com/videos/view/BBCsdemo-1187166661.can/

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