[mythtv-users] Hulu.com

[Michael T. Dean]

On 03/19/2008 04:09 PM, Brian Wood wrote:
> On Mar 19, 2008, at 1:53 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>   
>> Same way the BBC enforces the UK-only restrictions on its service-- 
>> using
>> IP geolocating and legislating the illegality of exporting the service
>> and then playing a game of leap frog with those who choose to ignore  
>> the
>> TOS (detecting and disabling circumvention).
>>
>> Basically, given enough money (and legislative support), it's  
>> possible.
>>
>> Besides, haven't you heard about some of the (US) legislation that may
>> make proxying (and NAT and much more) illegal?  (Fortunately, the  
>> first
>> couple of incarnations of this legislation weren't passed, but as long
>> as there are people with money doing things like putting
>> geo-restrictions on things like Hulu...)
> It's most likely the MPAA types putting restrictions on their precious  
> "content". DRM providers like MS have convinced them they can control  
> everything the way they want to. Probably the only way Hulu could get  
> the content at all was to agree to silly restrictions that make no  
> technical sense in the real world.
>
> You can pass a law against sharing mp3s, that's a far cry from  
> actually preventing it.
>   

The legislation is actually to prevent the service providers from 
allowing it.   It prevents anyone from setting up a publicly-accessible 
proxy.  It does not prevent an individual from setting up a proxy (with 
a system in the UK with a valid internet connection and sufficient 
downstream and upstream bandwidth).

They also maintain a list of "approved" IP addresses at the BBC.  Known 
publicly-accessible proxy servers are not on this list.

> If I put a machine i somewhere and set up an encrypted tunnel from it  
> to my vacation home on Mars I don't see how anybody could "prevent" my  
> using it.

Do some research on the BBC stuff.  They're doing amazingly well with 
it, all things considered.  Of course, in this context, "amazingly well" 
means at preventing the use of the video outside the UK--it doesn't have 
anything to do with making it actually usable to those inside the UK.  
See 
http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2007/08/using_the_bbc_iplayer_outside_of_the_uk.php 
and search for the string "outside the UK" (right next to a pic).  :)

Of course, stopping people who should be allowed to use something is 
considered an acceptable friendly-fire casualty of DRM wars.

http://iplayersupport.external.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/bbciplayer.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=28&cat_lvl1=4

However, in general, they've "succeeded" by making it so that it's 
actually more work for someone outside the UK to get the BBC programs 
(or should I say, "programmes" ;) through the BBC's website than it is 
to get them through other sources.  Basically, if you're the type of 
individual who would circumvent the TOS to get hold of the BBC programs, 
you're probably also the type of person who would have no problems 
illegally downloading the content (in a much better quality form than 
the Flash cra^H^H^Hformat they use--i.e. as an AVI with XviD or 
whatever) from some sordid site.  And, the latter approach is likely to 
be much simpler, doesn't require setting up your own proxy/getting an 
ISP or hosting provider in the UK, and is likely to give something that 
the end user/copyright-violator is happier with, anyway.

BTW, I live in the US, but have been watching the BBC thing only to see 
how the "tech" progresses.

Mike