The Open Source Consortium (OSC) will take action against the BBC this week because of the use of Microsoft Media Player in the corporation’s iPlayer. The OSC will raise a formal complaint with UK broadcast and telecoms watchdog Ofcom, and threaten to take the case to the European Competition Commission if domestic regulators do not act. The OSC first brought the case to the attention of Ofcom earlier this year.
The consortium claims the decision to use a Windows player will force people to buy Microsoft products and excludes users of other operating systems, e.g. Mac and Linux. The decision to approve the player was made by the BBC Trust at the end of April. The public broadcaster’s independent governing body approved iPlayer on the basis of its own investigations and a Market Impact Assessment (MIA) carried out by Ofcom.
In a response the BBC made the following statement: “The BBC aims to make its content as widely available as possible and has always taken a platform agnostic approach to its internet services. It is not possible to put an exact timeframe on when BBC iPlayer will be available for Mac users. However, we are working to ensure this happens as soon as possible and the BBC Trust will be monitoring progress on a six monthly basis.”
