[FC-discuss] Letter to the BBC

[Timothy Cowlishaw]

On 13 May 2007, at 21:51, Ringo Kamens wrote:

> I think that when given the choice between ethics/the public interest
> and the interest of copyright holders the BBC should choose the public
> interest. If it comes down to it, I would prefer they not make the
> content available at all over making it available with DRM. You bring
> up a good point. If the BBC said "online users won't get your content
> unless you agree to license it without DRM" then I think there's a
> good chance that they could do it without DRM.
> Comrade Ringo Kamens

The other, slightly ridiculous aspect to all this is that, AFAIK, the  
BBC's charter includes provisions that prevent them from negatively  
affecting the competitiveness of the broadcast market. Therefore, the  
BBC are not allowed to use their public service status to offer a  
service (such as DRM free downloads) that other commercial  
broadcasters could not offer. This is why the BBC were banned from  
offering mp3 downloads of classical music (despite them wholly owning  
the rights in the recordings, and the underlying musical works being  
Public Domain), for fear that it could negatively affect the  
competitiveness of the recorded classical music market.

Cheers,

Tim