I was particularly impressed that you covered the union issue, as that’s something most people aren’t aware of – understandably so, as it’s not really relevant to anyone outside the industry.

But another crucial issue that you don’t mention is the territorial one. Rightsholders only have the legal right to permit online access within the territory that comes under their jurisdiction. For instance, I’ve been making clips from the BBC Television Shakespeare productions available online in the UK (strictly limited to schools and libraries only, but that’s another issue), and the BBC, Equity, etc. have been happy to give me the go-ahead.

But I cannot make this material available outside the UK under any circumstances whatsoever, as each additional territory would require renegotiation with the relevant rightsholders. And in the case of small independent productions that might have been sold to a different distributor in every territory, this rapidly becomes a legal and logistical nightmare.

So unless you own the material 100%, by which I mean you also have waivers from all potentially interested third parties (and how likely is it that you’ll get Equity to sign up to that?), making DRM-free material available is fraught with legal peril – not least the threat of a justified lawsuit from one of your foreign distributors.

(On the subject of “free DivXs all round”, I had a wonderful, impossibly utopian e-mail from someone who interpreted this announcement as meaning that he would be able to download everything that had ever been broadcast on British television, as well as everything in the National Film and Television Archive, was very disappointed that he was wrong, and urged us to consider something along those lines. Yes, it is a nice idea, isn’t it? Ain’t never gonna happen in a million billion trillion years – quite aside from the copyright issues, can you imagine what it would cost to digitise everything? – but it’s a nice idea nonetheless)