The beta BBC player incorporating Windows DRM is sorta available here. I say sorta because after registration and agreeing to the license which has only 31 numbered provisions, you have to wait for email to find out if you've been accepted to the trial. As of last night, I had not been accepted although I agreed to the terms of the license.
Meanwhile, the BBC continues to be attacked. Indymedia.UK has called for protests on August 14th in London and Manchester. Others have attacked the BBC for using DRM at all and for restricting the beta to participants running Windows XP. For example, writing in the Newstatesman, Becky Hogge says:
The move has caused outrage among Linux users, with many wondering if they should stop paying their licence fee. And the Open Source Consortium, which represents small businesses that predicate their wares on Linux - and which complain that the BBC's move is anti-competitive, distorting the market in favour of Microsoft - has made a last-minute intervention through Ofcom.
Of course, the BBC would not face accusations of market distortion, were it to use standard formats. But this option has been precluded by the perceived requirement of rights holders to use DRM, even as those in other spheres, such as the recording company EMI, are moving away from this consumer-unfriendly technology. Indeed, the BBC seems to have got itself into a position where it cannot win; and this is partly because expectations about what we can do in the digital world have already moved on. By the time it launches, the iPlayer might already be Last Month's Penis.
