BBC iPlayer and Apple iPhone: FIGHT!

By Davey Winder
Monday, 13 October 2008 15:09

Market

So the BBC is on a mission to make the iPlayer available on more portable devices, as long as they support Windows Media-protected content that is. Which means no iPlayer content on your iPhone. Or does it?

Anthony Rose is the head of the Online Media group at the BBC, and as such is a man on a mission as far as the iPlayer is concerned. He has made no bones about the fact that he wants to make BBC iPlayer TV programmers viewable on portable devices.

If watching the telly in 320x180 resolution while on the move is your cup of tea, then you are in luck. Unless you happen to use an iPhone that is.

Rose has announced that this downloadable BBC iPlayer content has been tested on the Sony Walkman E and S series, Archos 605 WiFi and Internet Media Tablet, Philips GoGear 52xx series, Samsung YP-P2 and YP-Q1 and the Nokia N96.

But not the iPhone. And the sticking point is, yes you guessed it, DRM. You see the devices that can download and play iPlayer content all support Windows Media Protected playback.

Which is handy because the BBC has bought a license for that Windows DRM for portable devices.

What it cannot buy is something similar for the iPhone, or any Apple device, because Apple does not license its own DRM technology to third parties.

Rose says that Sony, Philips, Nokia and other devices all support 'open' rights protection technologies "where 'open' means that any content owner or distributor, such as the BBC, is able to readily license the DRM technologies used by those devices and is able to create content that can be played back on those devices."

However, he also maintains that thanks to the Apple policy of not licensing its DRM technology "as of today, it's not technically possible for us to make rights-protected BBC iPlayer programmes available for download from the bbc.co.uk/iplayer website in a format compatible with Apple devices."

But is that actually the case? More on page 2...

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