There’s also another wider problem of DRM controls, and that is *who really controls* the device you bought. Re: Apple’s customers and their right to ‘jailbreak’ their iphone etc.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46151

The TV licensing situation is getting out of hand with its cancerous attitude that anyone with a web-enabled device is under suspicion of watching TV on it. web-PPV could help ease the pressure on licensing increases.

Thankyou.

Claiming that whoever you are speaking to is on the side of persecution, against liberty, and against users is hardly a great way to make a point in a technical discussion. It’s a Freedom Fries argument, and I don’t think that anyone has ever seen much good come from these.

If you take a step back from the heat of the discussion, you’ll notice that no one involved actually really likes DRM. If you think that the problem being tackled here is for or again DRM, then you’re missing the point.

The question that lies open before us is: given that DRM exists, should it be implemented through proprietary plugins or should it be possible to hook it somehow into the open web platform?

It’s a difficult question in part because even if you have the clear goal that DRM should be eradicated — which you’ll find is a view actually shared by many people who support this specific work at W3C — there is no way to prove which path will most likely succeed in attaining that goal.

It may be that DRM on proprietary plugins will cause DRM to die as the Open Web Platform renders proprietary platforms obsolete. But it may also be that by being the only solutions to a feature that for better or for worse is requested by large industry segments, proprietary platforms will be kept artificially alive. It certainly seems to be the case that platforms that probably should have died a while back (e.g. Flash, Silverlight) survive to this day because they support DRM.

Conversely, it may be that DRM accessible through the OWP will bring DRM’s customers deeper into the OWP’s fold and culture, progressively assimilating their current world view until DRM is digested into nothing. But it may also be that it keeps DRM alive longer than its time by rendering it available on the dominant platform.

We can all make guesses, we can have intuitions, but if we’re being honest there’s no telling which strategy is most likely to succeed in either eliminating DRM or turning it into something that’s user friendly.

If you see this as being the discussion we’re having, the decision we’re faced with, then it should be clear that any grandstanding talk of liberty and persecution rings rather hollow.

We have to make a bet, and then we have to help it get where we’d like it to go. That’s where the more concrete issues surface, notably the ability to support this feature in open source products. That’s why I think that Mozilla’s input on issues they see about supporting Encrypted Media in Gecko has been particularly important and defines concrete hurdles that our group must overcome.

So to summarise, at this point in the discussion, I think our motto is: More Open Source, Less Freedom Fries.

How many million international customers might the BBC sell a $5/mo subscription to Netflix/Spotify style access to the BBC’s original content?

Saying things often enough doesn’t make it true.

I have avoided the TV License for years, and they caught up with me last year. That was the only measure I had to take. But I still can’t watch *live* UK TV over the net without a license.

They’ll also remind you that an internet enabled mobile phone is subject to scrutiny. (f*ckers!)
It’s a mad mad mad world.

It’s *very* hard to convince the TV licensing people that you don’t have a TV.

It used to be, but it really isn’t hard now. You just fill in an online form, and they promise not to bother you again for two years. I did it about six weeks ago. 

I moved into my current house over three years ago, and this was the first I had heard from TV licensing.

I should know better than to contribute to this comment thread and dare say abuse will follow.

What, after that warm, friendly opening comment?

All in all this is the web, servers or content providers have no control over who client is and what client does with content they serve, and limiting some content to only clients who do give some control over to content provider is just that, limiting your user base, I sure am not to install those kinds of browsers and ignore those content providers…

In the future we will have all high speed internet with nothing to share or to show. Ever wondered why this new 4G technology gives you only 5 Gigs of data at a reasonable price?

Time to get rid of I-Phone, Droid and Co. and show the telecoms what we want.

It’s even harder to convince them that, even when you own a TV, you don’t watch TV on it (remember when we all used to use TVs as computer displays?).