BBC issues iPlayer fix

Telecomworldwire, March 14, 2008

TELECOMWORLDWIRE-14 March 2008-BBC issues iPlayer fix(C)1994-2008 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD http://www.m2.com

A fix has been issued for the iPlayer from broadcasting company the BBC, intended to prevent users from downloading programmes from the iPlayer website which are only meant to be streamed on an iPhone or iPod.

The BBC said hackers had discovered an exploit enabling them to save the programmes to hard disk and then share them with other users. The company is only able to offer streamed programmes for up to seven days following broadcast, due to rights issues, while the download service for PC users enables viewers to keep the programmes on their PC for up to 30 days.

The Digital Rights Management on downloadable programmes from iPlayer was reportedly exploited and breached a while ago. The BBC confirmed it is continuing to monitor the situation, with hackers attempting to get around copy protection.

Last week the BBC announced an iPlayer version for iPhone and iPod touch users, with content streamed as an MP4 file without copy protection, which hackers determined they could access using a simple Firefox plug-in.

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