Tony Yarusso's Blog

The venerable Beeb is seeking our input, so take a few moments to give it to them if you can. The survey is regarding various new on-demand services and media that they intend to offer, and there are a few key points that we need to make sure they hear from the free software community about.

For one, they one of the four new services proposed is "Non-digital rights management (DRM) audio downloads over the internet (podcasting of selected radio programmes)". Let them know you're proud of them for not jumping on the DRM bandwagon, and that having fair use and playable content is important to you.

If you are limited on time, they invite people to "please feel free to respond only to those questions you feel are relevant to you" - here are a few I found of particular interest and/or importance:

Question 3 on the survey involves "The BBC Trust has proposed setting a limit of 30 days as the amount of time that programmes can be stored on a computer before being viewed....How long do you think consumers should be able to store BBC programmes on their computers before viewing them?" Many people I suspect have feelings on that, so make sure to check out that question.

Question 5 is "How important is it that the proposed seven-day catch-up service over the internet is available to consumers who are not using Microsoft software?" In my opinion, this is an absolutely crucial one for everyone to go answer, as proprietary media formats versus free ones is one of the most pressing issues in online content availability today. If you only have time for one, please make it this one. Feel free to drop them a line to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FreeFormats.

If you have time to read them, Question 11 may be of interest as well: "Do the revisions proposed to BBC Service Licences to allow the new services to go ahead seem appropriate?"

It's not often a major content provider invites input users to have some say over the direction they take in the near future - let's make this one count.

To participate in the survey, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/open-consultations/ondemand_services.html, and for a bit of background see http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/research/iplayer-public-value-test.html as well.