BBC vows to tackle iPlayer hackers

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The BBC has promised to crack down on people who abuse its long awaited iPlayer broadband catch-up service "in a big way" but admitted that hacking was impossible to stop.

The BBC's director of future media and technology, Ashley Highfield, today said the corporation was confident the iPlayer Microsoft DRM operating system was robust but admitted some form of hacking was inevitable.

"We will crack down if people abuse things in a big way," Highfield said at this morning's session of the Institute of Economic Affairs future of broadcasting conference.

"For as long as anything is ever made, people will find a way of cracking things," Highfield said.

"Microsoft DSM is as robust as they come. But you can videotape any programme now and upload and distribute it.

"A lot of our content on YouTube we just let go because it is pretty good marketing for us but if people start posting whole series of our programmes for free we will get them to take them down."

Viewers will be able to use the iPlayer - which launches next month - to catch up on any television or radio programme aired in the previous seven days.

They will also be able to download programmes and save them on their computers for up to 30 days. Once opened, programmes will be viewable for up to seven days.

The much delayed iPlayer, which will offer 400 hours of programming initially, will launch on July 27.

The BBC has said it hopes to attract 1 million users to the system in its first year.

Source: Guardian