Re: [Fsfe-uk] BBC's DRM Iplayer windows only

[Alex Hudson]

On Mon, 2007-12-31 at 12:54 +0000, Andy wrote:
> On 30/12/2007, Alex Hudson <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Building on top of IE
> > - technically - is much easier than Mozilla.
> 
> It's not the actual application being "built" on IE it's the site
> requiring I.E. that's the problem.

Are we talking about the same thing? The Windows-only iPlayer is an
executable file you download off the BBC website and run on a Windows
desktop. It's an exe, not a website. 

(There is a Flash streaming solution too, but I wasn't really talking
about that, and it's not the same functionality as the "real" iPlayer)

> > Similarly, I think the DRM is much more about preventing non-UK-resident
> > users than free software users.
> 
> If it's about preventing non-UK users then can't that be done using IP
> filtering?

I think they do that _as well_, but it's not foolproof - it's not going
to catch some foreigners, and it does block license fee payers.

The idea the BBC had before was that they installed equipment with
broadband ISPs (or something), and there was this Real-based streaming
setup to watch certain programmes. It seemed to work ok, and I don't
know why they got rid of it - perhaps because it was limited to a few
ISPs or something.

Cheers,

Alex.