You Never Call, You Never Write...
BBC blog drm encryption ofcom shakespeare · 2 comments · 350 words
As Shakespeare said...
"[Blog posts are] a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Today Ofcom published the responses it had for its consultation on plans for the BBC to encrypt its HD broadcasts.
The blogosphere went nuts! DRM? Not on our watch. Boing Boing mobilised its army of commentators, the BBC published two blog posts which quickly filled up with comments, Facebook statuses were updated and all these links were retweeted until our fingers were worn to their nubs.
No doubt Ofcom has collapsed under the weight of public opinion. How can the BBC possibly hope to get away with their fiendish plans with such a backlash?
90 People
Ninety. Less than one hundred. Smaller than the viewing figures for BBC Three. That's how many people could be arsed to type a few dozen words to Ofcom, spell check them, then hit send.
More people signed a petition asking for a Yorkshire sign to be erected on the M1 than responded to this consultation. Now, maybe my finger is off the pulse, but I haven't seen major blogs crying foul over Yorkshire's lack of signage.
On The Plus Side
You can read my response on their site. Like all the others I've read, it's against the proposals. I haven't read every response, but the twenty or so that I downloaded were all against the plans.
I know that there's typically low turn out to consultations of this kind. Organisations know that for every person who bothered to complain, there's more waiting in the wings quietly seething.
But only 90 people? I realise that the power of retweeting helped free Iran from a stolen election, but sometimes you actually have to do something. You don't even need to get off your computer. Find an email address, write a few sentences and let those in charge know how you feel.
This will help get you started.
@Edent Proud to say I was one of them! Though it doesn't appear that the original PDF is available, my response is still available on my recently reconstituted personal site…
https://dwm.me.uk/articles/2009/bbc-drm-consultation/ Response to BBC DRM Consultation
@Edent I didn't realise it was only 90, but I'm proud to say I was one of them.
However, I'm suspicious about that number. I didn't ask for my submission to be anonymous (I checked the response email), and it's published (1) but my name isn't in the list.
I can't see the list on the current version of the page because it's hidden behind javascript that isn't loading (2), which seems bad for a statutory body.
1) https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/49682/battley_mr_p.pdf
2) https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statements/category-1/content_mngt