BBC demands DRM for HTML5

>Look, these media companies are looking to us for advice; We're doing both them an ourselves a disservice by continuing to sell them DRM snake oil.

Seems to be working out pretty well for Hulu/Netflix. Or is releasing your $100 million budget film DRM-Free onto the internet now profitable??

"And if you are really interested in this topic, I suggest you read about the history of copyrights"

Been there, done that. You left a few details out, like how the first copyright law, the Licensing of the Press Act, was passed to enforce censorship, and how the next iteration was passed following heavy lobbying pressure by the printers who had enjoyed the monopoly position they held under the censorship program. The idea that copyright began as a way to pay authors is based on ignoring the Licensing Act and based on ignoring the role that printers played in pushing for the Statute of Anne.

The arguments authors made in favor of copyrights in the 18th century would have amounted to nothing were it not for the business community.

Prior to copyright, you had Shakespeare, you had folk music (which was spread peer to peer), and you had other modes of entertainment. Nobody was wanting for music or comedy. Written entertainment was more limited by the poor literacy rate of the general population than by the lack of written works. The biggest problem facing actors in 16th century England was not the lack of income (despite the easy duplication of a play), but the fact that they were often arrested as vagrants, and the general trouble with having secular theater at a time when religious institutions were fighting to stay relevant (sound familiar?).

Numbers are unfortunately hard to come by. On the other hand, you can find many shelves of centuries-old songs that were recorded by modern singers -- and it is not unreasonable to say that those songs are just a fraction of what people were singing centuries ago (society tends to forget songs, stories, and games over time). I do not think it is wrong to suggest that there were not shortages of music in the 16th century.

"not allowing for the "misunderstood genius" of people, but solely promoting popular content"

Copyright has done little to alleviate that. Misunderstood genius does not pay the rent; only popularity gives artists enough income to make ends meet on royalties alone. Authors, musicians, and actors frequently stick to their "day jobs" just to pay rent.

> If we're going to transition to a plug-in free web then we need HTML5 video to support these extensions.

So, a plugin-free web that requires plugins?

Third parties, namely Flash and Silverlight, already plug in their own DRM systems via NSAPI. How is this worse?

>We live in a world of government-granted monopolies given to companies like HBO.

I don't even know how to respond to this... last I checked cable and Satellite companies don't force HBO on you. And while cable companies held a semi-monopoly before Satellites, that market got disrupted like 30 years ago. Let it go.

>You are claiming, with no justification, that in the absence of copyright there would be no profit available for people who make entertainment.

Not completely. I'm claiming there wouldn't be enough profit to support the current proliferation or high budget entertainment options. I highly doubt shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Downtown Abbey, etc. would have gotten the funding they needed through crowdsourcing. You typically need a large studio with deep pockets to take on a project of that size. And most of them rely on ad revenue during broadcast, something that would likely diminish if there was no copyright and any TV studio was allowed to rebroadcast with different ads/no ads. Or if people were allowed to video tape it, copy it w/ no ads, and resell it.

Let's take a look at that simple example of yours. So who pays for the pilot episode to be produced? The T.V. studio? And after they air it then what? Hope enough people liked it to both pay for the production costs and a decent profit as well as fund the next episode? And you think that's a sustainable model??

If systems like you mention would be profitable why aren't there non-copyrighted entertainment options raking in the money right now? The internet has been around for awhile. There's nothing stopping people from releasing high quality non-copyrighted content and making money from it. What's the hold up? Government Monopolies??