DRM and the free world

English Open Chat
1

I know no one can change this, but i am getting really upset that i can not watch certain things.

Last time i tried to watch some episodes from the BBC and a message poped up telling me, that i live in a part of the world, that can not watch it.
The same thing happend to me on a german channel.

Now i do understand that companies want to protect their contend, but what i don’t understand and find really bad, that i can not watch things on the internet.
I mean, you mostly can not copy it via streaming anyway, and if you could then people in that particular country would do it anyway.

Now you have the internet and the supposed freedom, but its like you run against walls once your package hits another country.
A real improvement indeed.

I feel sad now.

2

On 02/24/2011 01:06 AM, JoergJaeger wrote:
>
> Last time i tried to watch some episodes from the BBC > I feel sad now.

yep…but, the way i understand it (which may be wrong) is that the
British Broadcasting Service is a service funded in part by taxes
collected from the populace…that is, it is paid for by the
government and license fees collected from the folks who receive the
service…

as such, why should the BBC deliver to you (or me) for free what their
own citizens must pay for?

that is, of course, quite different from the Digital Rights Management
‘problem’ in which broadcasters (over airwaves, satellite, digital or
whatever) are licensed by the rights holders to deliver to specific
groups/segments of watchers/listeners ONLY!

i don’t like it either: but on the other hand the creator of a
movie/tune/etc should receive compensation for their creation–if they
wish, and to do that there has to be some system by which the creator
can be paid for the use of the product…

one way to do that is for broadcasters (by whatever medium) to pay a
fee which varies by the size of the group to which the work is
distributed…and, therefore the station in Germany (say) pays one
fee for distro to all inside Germany, and a higher fee for each
additional segment of the earth’s population it delivers to…

so, not wanting to pay the license fee to feed you entertainment with
little or no expectation you will pay for that entertainment, they
simply block outside the country IPs…

–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD
[NNTP posted w/openSUSE 11.3, KDE4.5.5, Thunderbird3.0.11, nVidia
173.14.28 3D, Athlon 64 3000+]
“It is far easier to read, understand and follow the instructions than
to undo the problems caused by not.” DD 23 Jan 11

3

On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:11:37 +0530, DenverD
<DenverD@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

> On 02/24/2011 01:06 AM, JoergJaeger wrote:
>>
>> Last time i tried to watch some episodes from the BBC > I feel sad now.
>
> yep…but, the way i understand it (which may be wrong) is that the
> British Broadcasting Service is a service funded in part by taxes
> collected from the populace…that is, it is paid for by the
> government and license fees collected from the folks who receive the
> service…
>
> as such, why should the BBC deliver to you (or me) for free what their
> own citizens must pay for?
>
> that is, of course, quite different from the Digital Rights Management
> ‘problem’ in which broadcasters (over airwaves, satellite, digital or
> whatever) are licensed by the rights holders to deliver to specific
> groups/segments of watchers/listeners ONLY!
>
> i don’t like it either: but on the other hand the creator of a
> movie/tune/etc should receive compensation for their creation–if they
> wish, and to do that there has to be some system by which the creator
> can be paid for the use of the product…
>
> one way to do that is for broadcasters (by whatever medium) to pay a
> fee which varies by the size of the group to which the work is
> distributed…and, therefore the station in Germany (say) pays one
> fee for distro to all inside Germany, and a higher fee for each
> additional segment of the earth’s population it delivers to…
>
> so, not wanting to pay the license fee to feed you entertainment with
> little or no expectation you will pay for that entertainment, they
> simply block outside the country IPs…
>

would be nice if everything would be free for everyone. but for this to
work, this can’t be limited to online content only. if i was an artist or
journalist, creating content that others value and distributing it for
free, i would have to be able to invite myself to your house for a few
days, sleeping & eating under your roof, and then go on to somebody else’s
house. living costs money, and if i am supposed to create online content
for free, somebody else will have to take care of my basic needs.

when i was (very) young i used to consider myself an “anarchist,” thinking
that people were basically ‘good,’ and governments, capitalists, and the
whole enchilada were the ones screwing things up so that we couldn’t live
in freedom, happiness & peace with each other.

eventually i realized that, if there weren’t any rules, laws, and people
to enforce them, things would get out of control in a matter of hours, and
me & my anarcho friends were among the last ones i would want to have
around then. there’s plenty of things that are far from ok in today’s
world, no matter where on this planet you live. easy to find the faults,
but difficult to come up with alternatives that actually work. people
(including myself) aren’t as good as i naively used to believe, and to
some extent i believe it’s true that we get the government we deserve…

–
phani.

4

Another issue for the BBC is that they also raise money by selling certain programmes to other broadcasters; so they would lose that income if they made those programmes freely available across the world.

5

On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:06:01 +0000, JoergJaeger wrote:

> Last time i tried to watch some episodes from the BBC and a message
> poped up telling me, that i live in a part of the world, that can not
> watch it. The same thing happend to me on a german channel.

It’s actually not about DRM so much as it cost the BBC something to make
it, and they don’t give the content away for free - and they don’t yet
have a way for people outside the UK to pay for that content (in the UK
it’s paid for through the TV license fees).

Collecting payment from outside your country is actually not an easy
thing to do - because every government wants their cut of the taxes. I
know this because I have actually had to deal with it a few times in my
line of work.

If you think your local tax authority is complicated, just try dealing
with hundreds of other countries’ tax authorities when selling things
overseas. And then make those things “virtual” (ie, not something that’s
sent in the mail). With things sent in the mail, you can often send them
“VAT Due” and the customs office will hold the item until the recipient
pays the VAT.

With the sale of online content, that doesn’t happen, and if the seller
doesn’t pay the taxes to the recipient’s government and gets caught, the
fines can be pretty high (it varies from country to country, I’m told).

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

6

And that’s when you notice you’ve grown up. :slight_smile:

7

Not wrong, and the perfect answer.

Having travelled a bit beyond these shores, I find the the UK’s TV Licence Fee ( it’s a tax!) although steeped in history, out of step with the rest of the world. Hmm, but I find the lack of commercial advertising interrupting the programmes, a big benifit. Then there is the question of quality programming - it did lead the world once (News in particular) - but I question that over the last decade including the TV Licence Fee (but not the News). However the quality is returning. This is all a very personal opinion. If only we could have it without the Licence Fee… Discuss. :slight_smile:

8

The BBC was an example. There are others too.

Well, i do not mind to pay for it.
But it gets blocked anyway to outsiders.
With satelite TV you can view all channel in the world, or so i got told since i don’t have satellite.

In a global economy and disappearing virtual borders, its funny to see new virtual borders errected by co-operations.

I take the point with the tax issue. This might be indeed a problem. But like all problem, they are solvable.

Or here is another take.
I am german living now in the US of A. Now i like to watch or see some old shows or movies or whatever. Sure, i might be able to buy online and wait for shipping. But instead i would rather stream the content on my PC so i can watch it when i want it.
This is so far, as i know, not possible.

If money can flow around the globe in an instant, so can content. But i think its more the content holders are still in the past century.
As far as the BBC goes. Well, sure the shows are made for the british audience, but also for some other markets too like the US.

I know it will not change, at least not in the near future, but i needed to express myself. :slight_smile:

9

BBC has announced a subscription system being globally available some time in 2011. For the iPad.

Does anyone wonder why pirated content is still so popular?

10

This is news to me, but not unrealistic for a new service. Clearly a commercial venture, that has to be separated from UK only services, since for those the BBC is funded by UK Licence Fee Payers. The UK’s economic recovery measures (cuts in goverment spending) will have a limiting effect on the scope of such BBC projects. BBC would require a commercial partner to provide the hardware & software platform for delivery of the service to the consumer. Who/what would you suggest for that, bearing in mind it needs to be a manageable and chargeable service offering?. This is similar to delivering TV programming to cable TV e.g. Virgin Media via iPlayer in UK, or to satellite TV service providers. Someone has to bear the cost of delivering the service and make profit, in order to fund expansion of the service if successful.

11

On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:36:02 +0000, JoergJaeger wrote:

> If money can flow around the globe in an instant, so can content.

Except that content has to be paid for, which means someone has to
collect the money, and then each government involved has to collect their
taxes. It’s actually not simple - technologically, it is, but legally/
financially it isn’t.

> But i
> think its more the content holders are still in the past century.

I don’t disagree with that.

> As far
> as the BBC goes. Well, sure the shows are made for the british audience,
> but also for some other markets too like the US.

Yes, and they do so by selling the rights to (typically) the local PBS
affiliates or to BBC America - which is how they get paid for it. If we
in the USA could get the content direct from the BBC, then why would the
local PBS affiliates pay good money for programs that people (a) have
already got access to,and (b) people generally would get for free through
iPlayer if it weren’t restricted?

Now, with regards to the BBC, I’ve heard rumour that they are going to
offer a non-UK subscription plan sometime this year.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

12

On Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:36:01 +0000, gropiuskalle wrote:

> BBC has announced a subscription system being globally available some
> time in 2011. For the iPad.

Actually, I think it’s not just for the iPad, at least that’s not what my
wife had read.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

13

I am referring to →this article, it’s from December 2010. I did not keep track of the development since then, though. I personally totally enjoy paying huge $$'s for DVD-boxes of my favourite TV-shows (cough).

14

DRM doesn’t just apply to multi-media: it can also be applied to documents (eg, Microsoft rights management services). The NZ Govt. was sufficiently concerned that it developed a policy about DRM / ‘Trusted Computing’ /digital encumbrance. To quote from the policy, “These technologies present challenges and risks to government in the protection of the integrity of government-held information.” In other words, the accessibility, usability and retention of public documents (in the broadest sense) could be threatened.

Of course, the other threat to the integrity of documents is binary and proprietary document formats (eg, .doc, OOXML). Alas, the NZ Govt. has not grasped that nettle, unlike other jurisdictions which have adopted or endorsed open data and document formats (ODF). There’s a ruckus in Australia where the Federal government ICT agency has just published a COE (Common Operating Environment) policy that, amongst other requirements, appears to endorse OOXML with nary a mention of ODF. A case of DWMW (doing what Microsoft wants)?

15

On Fri, 25 Feb 2011 03:06:02 +0000, gropiuskalle wrote:

> “hendersj” Wrote:
>> Actually, I think it’s not just for the iPad, at least that’s not what
>> my
>> wife had read.
>
> I am referring to →’this article’ (http://tinyurl.com/49lhfgz),
> it’s from December 2010. I did not keep track of the development since
> then, though. I personally totally enjoy paying huge $$'s for DVD-boxes
> of my favourite TV-shows (cough).

Here in the US, it’s Netflix for us to deal with that. :slight_smile:

But I know what you mean.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

16

At least you get to choose which programmes you pay for. With the TV Licence Fee here, we pay even if the shows are rubbish. :slight_smile:

17

On 2011-02-24 20:41, Jim Henderson wrote:

> With the sale of online content, that doesn’t happen, and if the seller
> doesn’t pay the taxes to the recipient’s government and gets caught, the
> fines can be pretty high (it varies from country to country, I’m told).

Change the law and pay only to the country the selling company is. The BBC
provides the content, pay them only and forget the rest of the world.
They are doing the work… it is absurd to pay to Spain just because I’m
Spanish and live there for something I’m buying of the UK. Somebody else
will buy something from Spain and pay us. Fair enough.

If I buy something by email, I have to pay the British VAT, not the Spanish
IVA. Samething.

Absurd…

Another thing is that the broadcasting companies buy rights to broadcast
the programmes for a country or groups of countries, so that they can not
sell to outsiders.

I remember a tale of a satellite that broadcasted to the UK an
encrypted programme. The needed box wasn’t sold overseas, nor
the monthly subscription. Some enterprising folk broke the encryption
or sold another box to be able to watch that programme in France,
Germany, etc. Pirates! X’-)

They wanted to see Star Trek, I heard :slight_smile:

Solution? P2P; or anonymous proxies in the country the distributor is. They
then think you live in the UK >:-P

(probably illegal, but serves them right for not mending the world)

(disclaimer: no, I’m not recommending to break the whatever law. I’m just
commenting on what people .-) do)

It is a similar thing to me wanting to buy books in English and not being
able to. I can buy the kzin wars books for half a dollar each, then pay 10
dollars more for dispatch, each book. It would be nice to pay for a
computer file sent over internet. I’d pay! But no way…

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

18

On Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:03:07 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> On 2011-02-24 20:41, Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>> With the sale of online content, that doesn’t happen, and if the seller
>> doesn’t pay the taxes to the recipient’s government and gets caught,
>> the fines can be pretty high (it varies from country to country, I’m
>> told).
>
> Change the law and pay only to the country the selling company is. The
> BBC provides the content, pay them only and forget the rest of the
> world. They are doing the work… it is absurd to pay to Spain just
> because I’m Spanish and live there for something I’m buying of the UK.
> Somebody else will buy something from Spain and pay us. Fair enough.

It’s actually not that simple. Suppose you are buying a service that is
provided by an American company but hosted by servers in Canada, and
being viewed by someone in Germany.

That’s a real situation relating to paid online training. US wants its
cut, Canada wants its cut, and Germany wants its cut. All three
countries have a valid claim to collect taxes on a fee.

Another similar situation - a company based in Malaysia has a partner
company in the Philippines who provides a service to customers. The
location in the Philippines collects money, sends it to the company in
Malaysia who then pays the vendor. (That’s also a real situation, and
the cost has to include the tax for both countries, AIUI).

Now from the customer’s point of view, yes, they would only pay the BBC
in your example, but the BBC would be responsible for paying the taxes to
the various regulatory bodies involved. If they don’t pay the taxes
owed, and they get caught, they get fined more than the taxes.

Changing the law isn’t so simple, either, because it’s not just one
country’s law that’s involved.

Jim

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

19

On 2011-02-25 17:38, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:03:07 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> It’s actually not that simple. Suppose you are buying a service that is
> provided by an American company but hosted by servers in Canada, and
> being viewed by someone in Germany.
>
> That’s a real situation relating to paid online training. US wants its
> cut, Canada wants its cut, and Germany wants its cut. All three
> countries have a valid claim to collect taxes on a fee.

Easy: I decree that Germany will not have a cut >:-P

The other two will pay according to their earnings in each country to each
country, not to the other.

I mean: if the system produces earnings in the US of 100$, pay taxes for
those 100$ to the US only. If it also produces earnings of 80$ in Canada,
pay for those 80$ to Canada, and nothing to the US.

Germany gets nothing because they produce nothing.

> Another similar situation - a company based in Malaysia has a partner
> company in the Philippines who provides a service to customers. The
> location in the Philippines collects money, sends it to the company in
> Malaysia who then pays the vendor. (That’s also a real situation, and
> the cost has to include the tax for both countries, AIUI).

Well, that situation happens to many companies without internet in the picture.

> Now from the customer’s point of view, yes, they would only pay the BBC
> in your example, but the BBC would be responsible for paying the taxes to
> the various regulatory bodies involved. If they don’t pay the taxes
> owed, and they get caught, they get fined more than the taxes.

The taxes should be the same regardless of who buys the movies.

> Changing the law isn’t so simple, either, because it’s not just one
> country’s law that’s involved.

I know. Dump those countries :stuck_out_tongue:

(I should be a treckie: no countries, just planets :stuck_out_tongue: )

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

20

On Fri, 25 Feb 2011 20:20:06 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> On 2011-02-25 17:38, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:03:07 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
>
>> It’s actually not that simple. Suppose you are buying a service that
>> is provided by an American company but hosted by servers in Canada, and
>> being viewed by someone in Germany.
>>
>> That’s a real situation relating to paid online training. US wants its
>> cut, Canada wants its cut, and Germany wants its cut. All three
>> countries have a valid claim to collect taxes on a fee.
>
> Easy: I decree that Germany will not have a cut >:-P
>
> The other two will pay according to their earnings in each country to
> each country, not to the other.
>
> I mean: if the system produces earnings in the US of 100$, pay taxes for
> those 100$ to the US only. If it also produces earnings of 80$ in
> Canada, pay for those 80$ to Canada, and nothing to the US.
>
> Germany gets nothing because they produce nothing.

They provide part of the infrastructure for the delivery of the virtual
widget. :slight_smile:

But more importantly, you have to get politicians to agree to that
scheme, and you know how difficult that can be. :wink:

>> Another similar situation - a company based in Malaysia has a partner
>> company in the Philippines who provides a service to customers. The
>> location in the Philippines collects money, sends it to the company in
>> Malaysia who then pays the vendor. (That’s also a real situation, and
>> the cost has to include the tax for both countries, AIUI).
>
> Well, that situation happens to many companies without internet in the
> picture.

Yep, but it again shows the complexities of taxation.

>> Now from the customer’s point of view, yes, they would only pay the BBC
>> in your example, but the BBC would be responsible for paying the taxes
>> to the various regulatory bodies involved. If they don’t pay the taxes
>> owed, and they get caught, they get fined more than the taxes.
>
> The taxes should be the same regardless of who buys the movies.

Well, that I don’t disagree on - the customer shouldn’t have to worry
about the behind-the-scenes distribution/division of the payment.

It’s the simplification of the division of payment, though (because of
the taxes), that makes (for example) the BBC decide not to offer their
product outside the UK.

Having just done my US income taxes, I can understand not wanting the
headache. :slight_smile:

>> Changing the law isn’t so simple, either, because it’s not just one
>> country’s law that’s involved.
>
> I know. Dump those countries :stuck_out_tongue:
>
> (I should be a treckie: no countries, just planets :stuck_out_tongue: )

I’m with you on that, Carlos, absolutely. :slight_smile:

Jim

Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C