Update: Digital Lifestyles interviewed the OSC as they emerged from meeting the BBC Trust. Listen to the recording, which discusses the process planned to bring platform-neutrality to iPlayer.

Members of the Open Source Consortium met with staff at the BBC Trust yesterday to discuss their concerns about the iPlayer, due to launch in beta on Friday. And although the OSC left the meeting with reassurances that the Trust are committed to making the iPlayer cross platform, it is still unclear when solutions for Linux users will be rolled out. Speaking to ORG, the OSC said that the meeting was unlikely to deter them from taking their complaints to the European competition authorities.

The BBC could avoid all this mess if it eschewed DRM and instead employed standard formats. Sources say this is unlikely, since the BBC is under pressure from rightsholders to “protect” content it lets license fee payers download. But in other areas, like the recording industry, rightsholders are beginning to see how offering their wares without DRM can be good for business. The BBC should be leading the way on this issue, not running to catch up.

DRM is not a disincentive to downloading - it’s only ever a barrier to uploading. And given that, for example, Windows Media player DRM was cracked as recently as last week, it is not a very effective barrier at that. What’s really bizarre about the BBC’s employment of DRM for the iPlayer is that their programmes can already be downloaded using PVRs that receive free-to-air digital transmissions. Media convergence means there is no practical difference between unencrypted satellite, free-to-air, DAB or the internet in terms of control of content.

If you haven’t signed the iPlayer e-petition, do it now: news sources are beginning pick up on the growing number of people who feel they are affected by this issue. ORG’s response to the iPlayer consultation is here, and our work on DRM for last year’s APIG inquiry is here.

So I’ve just returned from Lugradio Live 2007, where there seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm for the work ORG has been doing over the last year. Thanks to Glyn and Richard for their dedication in manning the ORG stall. Together we met a lot of ORG supporters, and found a few more!

There was much concern over the BBC’s soon-to-launch iPlayer and its use of Microsoft DRM, to the exclusion of Linux and Mac users. You can read ORG’s submission to the BBC Trust (pdf), and there’s still time to sign this e-petition and draw Downing Street’s attention to the situation.

It’s hard to know how to get the BBC to listen to the concerns of Linux and Mac users on this issue, so please leave suggestions for further action in the comments, and watch this space.

It’s time to get in touch with your MEP again.

IPRED2 – the EU’s second intellectual property enforcement directive – is going to the vote at the EU Parliament next week. If it passes in its current form, “aiding, abetting, or inciting” copyright infringement on a “commercial scale” in the EU will become a crime. What’s more, it will be the first time the EU will force countries to impose minimal criminal sanctions – this is normally left up to the discretion of member states.

EFF Europe have set up a new website – copycrime.eu – to help stop the directive coming into law in its current form. According to them:

“IPRED2’s new crime of “aiding, abetting and inciting” infringement takes aim at innovators, including open source coders, media-sharing sites like YouTube, and ISPs that refuse to block P2P services.

With the new directive, music labels and Hollywood studios will push for the criminal prosecution of these innovators in Europe, saying their products “incite” piracy - with EU taxpayers covering the costs.

Under IPRED2, these same entertainment companies can work with transnational “joint investigation teams” to advise the authorities on how to investigate and prosecute their rivals!”

The directive is poorly drafted, and doesn’t define “commercial scale” well enough to ensure that ordinary citizens exercising their rights under copyright and trademark law aren’t at risk of penalties and fines. EFF, FFII, BEUC and EBLIDA have jointly drafted a set of amendments, which have been tabled by the European Green Party. The amendments would:

• Limit the scope of IPRED2 to true criminal enterprises, involving copyright piracy and trademark violations done on a commercial scale, with malice and the intention of earning a profit from the enterprise
• Avoid creating an unprecedented scope of secondary liability for Internet intermediaries, ICTs, software vendors and a range of legitimate business activity, by removing the words “aiding or abetting and inciting” from Article 3
• Provide legal certainty by adopting precise and appropriate definitions of “on a commercial scale” and “intentional infringement” in Article 2 as commercial activity done with the intent to earn a profit directly attributable to the infringing activity

The coalition need you to get in touch with your MEP and ask him or her to support these tabled amendments before the vote on 24 April. All MEPs have been sent a copy of the proposed amendments, so they will know what you’re talking about when you ask them to “support the librarians’, consumers’ and innovators’ coalition amendments to IPRED2”.

For more details on the amendments, advice and suggestions on what to say to your MEP, and to sign EFF Europe’s petition against IPRED2, visit the Copycrime action page.

John Pugh MP has tabled an Early Day Motion number 179 in the House of Commons entitled Software in Education. Please write to your MP requesting that they add their name to this motion.

That this House congratulates the Open University and other schools, colleges and universities for utilising free and open source software to deliver cost-effective educational benefit not just for their own institutions but also the wider community; and expresses concern that Becta and the Department for Education and Skills, through the use of outdated purchasing frameworks, are effectively denying schools the option of benefiting from both free and open source and the value and experience small and medium ICT companies could bring to the schools market.

Software in schools - John Pugh - Early Day Motion 179

The Open Schools Alliance have detailed information and advice on what to put in your letter.

UPDATE, 1 Dec 06: The EDM has now been signed by 39 MPs from all the main parties, which is above average for any Early Day Motion. The aim for the next two weeks is to get nearer the 100 signatures mark (of the 380 EDMs tabled by MPs since the Queen’s Speech, only 6 have over 100 signatures). If you haven’t written to your MP, please do so!