BBC new media boss wants "world beyond DRM"

 

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By Simon Aughton

Posted on 19 Nov 2007 at 13:53

The BBC's head of Future Media and Technology believes that the broadcaster's programming will eventually be available without DRM restrictions.

Ashley Highfield came under attack from Linux and Mac advocates earlier this year, when he said that a lack of open-source DRM solutions currently prevented the BBC from launching its download service on non-Windows platforms.

However, Highfield now tells Groklaw that the iPlayer's current dependence on Microsoft's DRM is "probably only an interim solution".

"We are looking at two long-term solutions," he claims. "One is an open-source solution to DRM. The other - because I think that is probably only an interim solution - the long-term alternative solution is a world beyond DRM and how we can work together, particularly with our rights holders, to get to a world beyond DRM."

Highfield says the impetus for using DRM in the first place came not from the BBC but from rightsholders - such as writers, or directors and producers - who initially didn't want their content to be made available. "And the initial point was, yes, convincing them that the content was well-protected, that once they understood enough about copyright and digital rights management to want to be assured that the content would be available free within the UK but not freely copying available outside the UK," he said.

Highfield was keem to stress the BBC has never committed to using Microsoft technology. He points out, for example, that it chose Flash over Silverlight for streaming iPlayer content to Mac and Linux users and says that the corporation is, as he mentioned, evaluating open-source DRM technologies, though he declined to say which.