[Fsuk-manchester] Video DRM

[Tim Dobson]

A few days ago the FSF's executive director Peter Brown launched an
appeal[1], with an accompanying video[2] in which he talked about the
success of this year's BBC iplayer anti-DRM protests, one of which was
of course held in Manchester.

Peter went on to talk about how we must continue our campaign against
video DRM in other mediums, as well as the iplayer, and to me this
really seems like a big pointing finger towards Kangaroo.

For those of us, who usually live in a media blackout, kangaroo, is
the rather unlikely code name for a BBC, ITV and C4 project for a
unified TV on Demand distribution platform. The details at the moment
are very sketchy, but from what is hinted[3], is that that kangaroo
will not be cross platform, which itself also gives the impression
that it will be using video DRM.

As the BBC launch their flash based, streaming version of iplayer so
that *everyone* can use it[4], I think we really need to step up our
efforts for platform agnostic, DRM free video based on open standards
and free software.

Cheers

Tim

P.S. Random joke[5] to stop Noah thinking everything I say is serious.

[1] http://www.fsf.org/appeal/2007
[2] http://www.fsf.org.nyud.net/appeal/2007/2007-appeal-live.ogg
[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2007/11/iplayer_and_kangaroo_1.html
[4] http://james.cridland.net/blog/2007/12/12/iplayer-on-gnulinux/
[5] http://www.dobo.urandom.co.uk/2007/12/09/the-atheist-and-the-bear/
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