Peer-to-peer
So many people talk about 'peer-to-peer' as though it is illegal. OK so its the main technology for transferring files from A to B, but it is just a technology. There are many other ways of exchanging files: and if you want to do it so no-one can see what you are doing then 'peer-to-peer' is not the way, use an encrypted file vault.
So let's get it clear, peer-to-peer file transfer is nothing to do with copyright infringement.
Piracy
Piracy is another emotive word that is bandied about. Piracy is stealing. Copying a music file is not stealing, it is copying, the original still exists. Also piracy is criminal. Copyright infringement is not piracy.
And, by the way, copying a work is perfectly legal for certain reasons, for example for education, for journalistic review and many other 'fair-use' reasons. Libraries can stock CDs/DVDs and loan them out, copying that CD/DVD would be illegal, but listening to it is not. There is a very strong argument that making a backup copy of your own CDs for your own safety is not illegal, but many people even want to block you from doing that. For DVDs you will have to break the DRM on the disks, but that is already broken thing anyway.
DRM
Blocking copying technically is called DRM - notionally meaning Digital Rights Management - or in other words using technology to enforce the rights under which a work is released. The trouble is that in many cases DRM actually blocks your perfectly legitimate rights, for example it can block you from freely using any player to listen to your purchased music, or watching a movie on any player or recording a TV broadcast or making a backup copy, or for convenience copying a movie to your home network storage hard drive.
BBC iPlayer
This is a mess. The BBC have many different versions for web browsers and as dedicated players on various platforms. The different versions use different video codecs, in particular web browsers and PC players use Flash, with DRM! While the version for iPhones/iPads uses MPEG4/H264 without DRM. Watching is limited to one week, on-line or for saved files (you can't save on an iPhone/iPad as, without DRM, they have no way to stop you watching after one week!
What a mess!
Watching TV on iPlayer does not require you to have a TV licence, the TV licence is only to use a TV receiver connected to an aerial at a specific premises. Recording a program from a TV broadcast is not illegal either and you can keep it for as long as you like.
The BBC seems likely to expand its use of DRM, which as a public broadcaster it cannot impose on over the air transmissions, by building a new set-top-box, called YouView, which itself will encode the received signals and prevent you from saving files to place on the internet... this is how it is planned to work:
DTCP (networks), HDCP (HDMI connections) and AACS (Blu-Ray disks) are forms of DRM which are used throughout the system. It means you have to have dedicated, licenced equipment supporting each of these in your home theatre system. Notice that this DRM operates mainly for HD video, not for SD which can be copied openly! Creepy, creepy studios!
Of course the system architecture may not be the one you want in your home. If you prefer to have the system that Apple is proposing then it won't work with the BBC. Tough cookie, or is it? This is not what I call an open market.
Apple, again at the demand of studios uses its own, non-compatible, DRM called Fairplay! Not really fair, but hey ho.
This whole thing boils down to the studios wielding power of broadcasters, and the broadcasters not standing up for their customers. The BBC should just say no to DRM not play wormy games with our legitimate rights and wants.
Legal?
Copyright protection is a legal issue, a moral issue, but not a technical issue. Stop messing with progress.
And by the way the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 gives the right to record a broadcast for viewing later at any time. So you should be able to save the iPlayers files for viewing later, at ANY time you chose, not just up to a week later. The BBC has taken away your legal rights.
DE Act
The DE act was passed in the infamous wash-up of the last parliament. 40 MPs debated it, then 180 streamed in from the bar to pass it. It is a bill to prosecute people who infringe copyright by copying files without permission, and it also stops you using any software to break DRM. (Don't worry most DRM is already broken... and is un-workable).
The DE act has already spawned some pretty ugly legal firms who have employed internet monitoring companies to record the IP addresses of people who they believe are downloading copyright works, pass these IPs to ISPs and demand the name and address of the user. The ISPs have then passed these names and addresses back , and the legal firm have sent threatening letters, tantamount to blackmail, to the downloaders asking for money. Foolishly some people have paid up, even though there is no firm legal evidence of wrong-doing and no court case. In fact these lawyers have never brought any cases to court. The solicitors society is jumping on them, but still the scam goes on. If you get a letter, just bin it.
OK, so it is right to try to legally stop copyright infringement, but the bigger picture is that copyright itself needs rewriting for the digital/internet age.
Fix it
End of rant. Let's hope some clear thinking will someday come.
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