On Mon, February 26, 2007 10:12, John Wesley wrote:
> On 26/02/07, Samuel Penn <sam@???> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sun, February 25, 2007 18:18, Andy Random wrote:
>> >
>> > On Sun, 25 Feb 2007, Gordon Scott wrote:
>> >
>> >> Why I wonder should a taxpayer funded public service broadcaster need
>> >> DRM?
>> >
>> > As I understand it the BBC makes a significant proportion of its
>> income
>> > from CD/DVD and overseas sales.
>>
>> Listening to the BBC backstage podcast that was linked to, the
>> BBC doesn't own most of its content. They have contracts to
>> actors, musicians, writers etc which prevent them from just
>> releasing content to the public. Even if the BBC were willing
>> to release everything freely, other right holders are unwilling
>> to have their content released without some protection.
>
>
> Is that actually true though? Has anyone done a survey to see if the
> right
> holders _do_ feel this way?
>
> I'm sure some of them do, but it would be nice to know what percentage of
> them were willing to let their creations roam free.
The example they gave was that they found one musical production
where they thought they owned the rights completely - it was
BBC written music, played by BBC musicians in a BBC studio. They
discovered however that the conductor was an external contractor
and it took 2 months to track down the contract, where they found
they needed to pay him for each broadcast.
It may be that he'd be willing to waive rights - but it took two
months to track down the details for that one person. Multiply
that by all the contracts the BBC has, and that's a lot of effort
(I do wonder how they manage normally, but that wasn't discussed).
Some people aren't willing to let their stuff roam free, even for
a big upfront payment, since no-one yet knows how much it's worth
to them to sign over their future rights (a statement made in the
podcast, I can't remember who by).
It's a complex issue, even if everyone was willing to cooperate.
Think of it like the Linux kernel - even if Linus wanted to move
to GPLv3, he'd have to get the permission of all the contributors
before he could change the license, since kernel contributors were
never required to sign over rights to Linus.
I'm not defending the BBC btw, just pointing out that it's not
entirely their decision on how to treat 'their' content.
(there were a few interesting nuggets of information in that
podcast btw).
--
Be seeing you, Web: www.glendale.org.uk
Sam. IM: samuel.penn@???
