[HN Gopher] German public broadcasters open source their streami...
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German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms
Author : ramboldio
Score : 157 points
Date : 2024-05-06 16:56 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.heise.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.heise.de)
| ulrischa wrote:
| These platforms are so bad. Can only be better
| mschuster91 wrote:
| A large part of that is "thanks" to IP licensing laws. A lot of
| stuff can be shown on TV with no issues, but not streamed or,
| in some extreme cases like Cold Case, sold as physical media.
| drewmcarthur wrote:
| public means public, if something is paid for by tax money, it
| should be licensed for public use
| fsflover wrote:
| If you really think so, you should sign this petition:
| https://publiccode.eu
| riedel wrote:
| This often a complicated case regarding competition law. In our
| neoliberal world giving away something for free that was
| subsidized is often seen as destroying market. The national CIO
| of Germany at one time recommended public bodies to us copyleft
| (also the EC opted for EPL) , rather than putting it into
| public domain. I also like this idea. However, this is
| fundamentaly different from the US. The German weather service
| even had to shutdown some functions in their free app due to a
| court order.
| kioleanu wrote:
| As a loophole, they ended up making the app paid as not
| constitute disloyal competition, which, depending on the
| angle makes sense: you have a competitor that you can
| actually never compete because regardless of what they do,
| their funding never runs out. It's not a fair battle. On the
| other hand tho, wetter online were crying like little kids
| about an app that was doing what a government was supposed to
| do.
|
| https://www.heise.de/news/BGH-Urteil-Staatlicher-
| Wetterdiens...
| freedomben wrote:
| Thanks, I strongly feel that publicy-funded software should
| be _at least_ open source if not public domain, but the
| market impact is a wrinkle I hadn 't considered before.
| constantcrying wrote:
| One would hope so, but they don't even open the shows for
| public use, they don't even keep them around so people can
| watch the things they had to pay for.
| blueflow wrote:
| I was about to call that the Rundfunkbeitrag is not legally a
| tax (Steuer), but a tax (Beitrag). For some reason that
| difference does not seem to exist in English and it translates
| to the same word??
| Grimeton wrote:
| broadcast license fee/tv license fee
| qwertox wrote:
| TV license fee. This is how it's named in the UK.
|
| Broadcast license is what broadcasters pay for in order to
| be allowed to broadcast the licensed content.
| usrusr wrote:
| The key difference is that the government never touches
| the money anywhere between citizen and broadcaster, to
| avoid unwarranted influence. I assume that people who
| know the British term know that, as the German one is
| surely modeled after the BBC. I'm writing for other
| readers.
|
| The downside is that it's a per head (or per household)
| sum, not coupled to income like taxes would be. This is
| usually explained away by the fee being separate from the
| state, but the reality is that Germany actually has it
| all implemented, in the form of the opt-in "church tax"
| coupled to taxable income just like regular tax. Handled
| by the tax office, but not going too government coffers.
| Would be so easy to extend the implementation to public
| broadcasting, because you don't pay to consume the media,
| you pay to live in an environment that is not dominated
| by profit-driven broadcasting media. There are many
| negative things to say about our public broadcasting, but
| when I look at other countries that don't have strong
| public broadcasting, it's _so much_ the lesser evil,
| totally worth the fee.
|
| (personally, I'd love to see that "church tax
| implementation" opened up to all kinds of opt-in
| membership organisations that would see value in income-
| coupled membership fees, I believe that a lot of good
| things could work that way, with people of all income
| levels enjoying an objectively fair way of contributing)
| sealeck wrote:
| Tax vs contribution?
| freedomben wrote:
| I think contribution is a much higher level word that is
| way too abstract to be useful in this context.
|
| When I think of "Contributions" I think of a voluntary
| transfer of money, whether from an individual to an
| organization or from an individual to themselves (like
| "contributions" to an IRA or 401k for example). But a
| contribution could even be sharing ideas with a group of
| friends (contributing to the conversation) or anything
| really.
| sunaookami wrote:
| It doesn't matter if it's masquerading as a license fee, it's
| by all means a tax - it's required by law and you go to jail
| if you do not pay it and you have to pay it even if you don't
| want to consume their content.
| qwertox wrote:
| If it were a tax, couldn't the collected money be used for
| anything the government sees fit, like fixing potholes?
| trueismywork wrote:
| Thats a distinction that only exists in German laws. And
| therefore in German language. That is not a distinction
| in other languages.
| Sayrus wrote:
| In France we used to have the "Redevance audiovisuelle"
| which just like in German didn't use the same word. It
| was removed in 2022 but according to Wikipedia[1], this
| is what Germany is using. The french version has a
| European maps with the different sources of financement
| used in European TV broadcasting services.
|
| Beitrag Wikipedia pages are available in other languages,
| namely Swedish and Esperanto. The meaning doesn't exactly
| match German's.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence
|
| [2] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beitrag#/languages
| franga2000 wrote:
| A specific "tax" just for TV/radio exists in many
| European countries, definitely not just Germany. And in
| general, there are many tax-like things out there where
| it's mandatory to pay them in specific circumstances and
| they go to a specific use.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Nah, this is a thing in Sweden too.
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| In English we could say the tax is ring-fenced for
| specific purposes.
| trueismywork wrote:
| The difference between Steuer and Beitrag is an artificial
| distinction that the German government has made in their
| laws. It has not much to do with the language itself. It's
| just that because German language is not used much outside
| Germany, official government terms and language basically get
| conflated.
| vaidhy wrote:
| Equivalent might be a bond paid by tax payers. The money
| collected is used only for a specific purpose, but you cannot
| avoid paying it. For me, a tax goes into a general fund that
| is budgeted for common use while a special purpose bond (or a
| tax) is money collected for a singular purpose and accounted
| as such.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I'd translate "Beitrag" literally to "contribution", maybe
| add a "mandatory" as qualifier.
|
| The key difference is that taxes are completely under
| discretion of parliamentary control, whereas the
| Rundfunkbeitrag is under discretion of the individual
| broadcast authority governance boards (which are too closely
| tied to politicians for my comfort, but that's another
| thing).
| jupp0r wrote:
| It doesn't exist because the distinction is meaningless. The
| government forcing you to pay money to a government
| (adjacent) institution is a tax for all practical purposes.
| luoc wrote:
| But there's a difference:
|
| A Beitrag is bound to a well defined objective which means
| it is determined what the money will be used for at the
| moment it is collected whereas a Steuer contributes to the
| household as such.
|
| Also, public TV is not controlled by the government but by
| a council that is more or less democratic. Still far from
| perfect, sure
| whalesalad wrote:
| the cookie popups are next level on this site
| solarkraft wrote:
| They are possibly illegal or at least against the law's spirit,
| which is ironic, because Heise is a relatively well respected
| publisher among German IT professionals.
| moritzruth wrote:
| I _think_ they are legal because the requirement is that you
| have an option to "deny all" which they provide. That you
| must subscribe to the "Pur-Abo" to use this option doesn't
| matter.
| yladiz wrote:
| I don't think that's right. You can't force someone to pay
| to not have tracking cookies (or something that infringes
| on the right to privacy). Facebook tried the same tactic
| and was forced to stop.
| croes wrote:
| Pay or Okay is illegal
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36720629
| NekkoDroid wrote:
| I am p sure that not too long ago the EU Commission put out
| a statement regarding Metas "Consent or Pay" and it not
| being allow and "privacy isn't something you should need to
| pay for". So I don't _think_ its legal, but I also didn 't
| look too much into it other than some headlines.
| Grimeton wrote:
| Heise changed a lot over the last 2-3 years.
| sambazi wrote:
| yea, rather scamish publication style but the content is ok.
|
| use of an adblocker is universally advised though
| sambazi wrote:
| the article does not say if the public has a stake in the private
| entity created to do this, which makes me curious why this path
| was chosen in the first place
| snowpid wrote:
| Usually no. But the German public broadcast isn't private at
| all.
| aeyes wrote:
| Why was the original title changed? They aren't open sourcing
| anything today.
|
| They are planning to develop new tech which they might open
| source. But all this still has to be approved by the regulator
| and the government.
|
| That said, I have seen some of the tech from the inside ~10 years
| ago. The ARD player was developed by a third party and there was
| no budget to bring this in house. Things might have changed but
| redoing everything just to open source it sounds like a waste of
| money.
| fweimer wrote:
| The original German article makes it clear it's only about the
| web front end and some ancillary services, not the video
| streaming service as such. The latter seems to be mostly
| Akamai-based.
| aeyes wrote:
| Exactly, that's why I wrote "the player" which is the most
| interesting tech.
|
| The rest of the system wasn't very interesting back in the
| day, just an off-the-shelf CMS and internal feeds to pull in
| all the content from the different channels automatically.
|
| Here is an old interview with the technical directors from
| back then explaining some of the internals: https://tech.ebu.
| ch/docs/techreview/trev_2010-Q1_Mediathek.p...
|
| The sites have changed quite a lot since then and they have
| added subscription content as well. Maybe they now have code
| which would be more interesting to open source.
| dopa42365 wrote:
| Not exactly the most ambitious project, is it. Besides the fact
| that both ARD and ZDF majorly struggle with the content itself in
| terms of quality and availability (it's not an archive,
| everything disappears quickly). One day they'll figure out this
| internet neuland thing ;)
| _tk_ wrote:
| Unfortunately, not making archived content available longer is
| due to the legal obligations that the public broadcasters face
| and that the German Government and the governments of the
| federal states themselves have put in place because of anti-
| competitive fear mongering.
| TomK32 wrote:
| I wouldn't call it "anti-competitive fear mongering" when one
| player in the market can rely on a virtually guaranteed
| income (you'd have to be homeless to avoid the
| Rundfunktbeitrag) while newspapers, private TV and radio have
| to fight for survival. ARD and ZDF buying and thus supporting
| the insane amounts that some sport events cost in license
| fees doesn't do FIFA and IOC any good as scandals of recent
| years have shown. Carlos Nuzman who ran the 2016 games got 30
| years for his corruption schemes.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Are you saying that the German legislature cannot change
| the law?
| Adverblessly wrote:
| Here in Israel they just upload most of their TV content to YT,
| some if it is really good. They used to also stream (and archive)
| their news stuff, but for some reason I'm getting a 404. (You can
| look up Kan11 and Kan11news if you are curious, though I don't
| think they have translations so probably not useful if you don't
| speak Hebrew).
|
| EDIT: Looks like it is only broken for me in FireFox...
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| If I liked srvgym, is there any recent series you'd recommend?
| ffsm8 wrote:
| That was the case in Germany too, at least for a few years.
|
| They've since changed their tune and ceased uploading whole
| episodes, only excerpts go onto YouTube now with links to their
| own "Mediathek".
|
| From my understanding they're doing so because the content is
| paid for by public money, and YouTube is a foreign for-profit
| company. So they were essentially spending the citizens money
| to provide content to a private entity that's headquartered
| abroad
| odiroot wrote:
| Fortunately Tagesschau still uploads to YT. Which is great
| because their website (and the video player) are a bit
| clunky.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > From my understanding they're doing so because the content
| is paid for by public money, and YouTube is a foreign for-
| profit company. So they were essentially spending the
| citizens money to provide content to a private entity that's
| headquartered abroad
|
| That's one thing, but IIRC the larger part was that the
| private broadcasters whined as they always do.
| Ringz wrote:
| Just like they whined about one of the best public funded
| and free weather apps out there and sued them: DWD
|
| https://www.dwd.de/DE/presse/pressemitteilungen/DE/2020/202
| 0...
| subpixel wrote:
| ARD is experimenting with trying to get users to jump out of
| YT for content, but they still post a lot of material there.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| German TV is doing that too, but there are harsh limitations on
| what they can make available and how long it can stay online,
| because private broadcaster sued them 20 something years ago.
| Since then, the rules change from time to time, and Public
| Broadcaster are carefully exploring what they really can do.
| aszantu wrote:
| ca. 2000s, I'm getting rid of my TV because if you have one in
| Germany, you have to pay the fee...
|
| ca. 2003, I'm getting rid of my tv-card which has been free until
| now, or else I have to pay a fee...
|
| ca. 2010, They've got a website now, if you have a computer or
| phone, you gotta pay the fee...
|
| great... now I have to pay the fee because I have a github... or
| what
| _tk_ wrote:
| You have to pay a fee if you live in Germany. It does not
| matter what kind of technology you have access to in theory.
| Thank god the German state does not have to check whether or
| not you have to own a TV.
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| yes, but it continued:
|
| ca. 2015, you have to pay it anyway, with no exemptions
|
| ca. 2020, they start randomly sending out delay penalties, even
| if you are late by days, without ever notifying you of the due
| dates
|
| ca. 2022, they sneakily shift the 3-months fee forward, first
| you can pay it at the end of the period, then in the middle
| month, then soon at the beginning
|
| meanwhile, the programming gets worse and worse every year.
| Then they get surprised if people vote for parties which
| promise to abolish it.
| _tk_ wrote:
| If you vote for fascists - whose lead candidates seem to be
| spying for Russia and China - because of a 17EUR license fee
| per month, then you should reevaluate your perspective on the
| public broadcasting system and on money.
| TomK32 wrote:
| It's 18,36EUR per month, not 17.
|
| If you don't want people who don't care for TV or Radio
| (they do exist) to vote for AfD then you shouldn't have
| introduced a Rundfunkbeitrag that's very unpopular with
| many more. Scandals about money being badly spent just adds
| to the distrust and lack of interest people have in ARD,
| ZDF etc.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| German TV Fee is significant older than AFD. Even the
| latest reform is older than AFD.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > fascists
|
| Well, they aren't actually. Lay off the hyperbole.
| PurpleRamen wrote:
| There are court rulings saying something different.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| This is great. It fits with how they're adopting Mastodon. Why
| isn't NPR officially adopting Mastodon? The fact that Truth
| Social exists should motivate NPR even more, as it could be
| accused of being pro-Trump while staying on Twitter. In Germany,
| no platform is run by any particular candidate, and they _still_
| went to Mastodon.
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| German public broadcaster has enough budget to send humans to the
| Moon. Still better than nothing, they could simply traditionally
| increase the fee without anything new in return. Any news from
| them them is a slap in the face and is assuring me that moving
| out of Germany was a good decision.
| biosboiii wrote:
| The current streaming service is shit.
|
| If you stream via Chromecast, you can see your connection getting
| dropped by adaptive bitrate streaming in realtime.
|
| It's always low quality, medium quality, high quality, ultra high
| quality, lag, then low quality again. You cannot change it to a
| fixed level manually too, on the Chromecast.
| DocZet wrote:
| The correct title is:
|
| "ARD and ZDF _want_ to offer their streaming code as open source
| "
| hoc wrote:
| To understand the quality level of their current platforms: they
| actually manage to recommend the same stream you just watched as
| the next auto-play entry and even might jump directly into the
| credits again, giving you a 10 to 20 seconds loop in extreme
| cases.
|
| While a two-stream recommendation loop is quite common in both
| systems, the loop above only happened twice for me so far. Still,
| it might just perfectly highlight the lack of passion and user
| focus plaguing their current platforms.
|
| So, whatever they come up with in the new and maybe open one...
| ah, who am I kidding.
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