Robin's Hood

I have been involved in both betas of the iPlayer for nearly a year now and now that it has gone public I can concur with this blogger that iPlayer is a big fat waste of time and it won't get used. I know for a fact that the BBC have already given up trying to get their copyrighted material off Google Video and YouTube, realising that they are fighting a losing battle. Why o why o why did they ever let this project see the light of day.

BBC iPlayer: Aunty launches the public beta of its IPTV app - Crave at CNET.co.uk: "The stupid thing is, iPlayer is being ruined by DRM and the associated technology required to make it work. Anyone can get TV programmes via BitTorrent by pressing one button and waiting 30 minutes or so. They then have a file that doesn't have restrictions, will play on a whole host of devices and doesn't expire. Of course, downloading copyrighted material is illegal, so most people won't do it, but until the iPlayer is as simple and pain-free as getting XviD files from The Pirate Bay, it doesn't stand a chance in achieving what the BBC wants, which is to control how their media is distributed over the Internet."