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BBC Episodes Legally Available Via Peer To Peer
Kript writes "According to the BBC they are going to make a number of their shows available on the Azureus network. A number of old favorites will be available such as Red Dwarf, Doctor Who and even Little Britain."
I have not RTFA. I'm wondering if Warner Home Video will lay the hammer down on me if I want to watch Red Dwarf in this manner...being in the U.S. and Warner Home Video being the U.S. distributor of many BBC programs.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
It won't be available for free on Azureus, it will be a DRM-infested pay-download on Azureus' pay service, Zudeo, and they haven't even decided what they're charging.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Just how hard is it to make anything available on P2P. It just has to be digital, interesting, and you promise not to sue for distributing it. Even big companies can usually manage this much.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
But this is not what they promised to do. As a British Licensefee payer I expect them to open up their content on UK filesharing networks, as they promised. Offering DRM'd content to overseas markets is not part of their charter. Making money should be a secondary concern to their primary purpose - delivering good tv to a British audience.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Article implies there might be a charge for these downloads (I'm guessing an open P2P but you need to buy a key to watch it). That would suck..
The movies will be crippled with DRM, according to the article. Also they won't be free, though TFA doesn't say anything explicitly about cost except "No pricing structure for the BBC content on Zudeo has been revealed".
I already have all Red Dwarf seasons on DVD, not that expensive and more than worth it :)
;)
But that's only my opinion.
Smeghead
This is the sig that says NI (again)
"I tell you one thing. I've been to a parallel universe, I've seen time running backwards, I've played pool with planets, and I've given birth to twins, but I never thought in my entire life I'd taste an edible Pot Noodle."
- Lister, Demons and Angels
I don't have a TV license. I regularly get threatening letters from the collections agency asking me to turn myself in for my heinous crime.
/tinfoilhat
They got so bad at one point that I actually wrote to them refusing to partake in any further correspondence until they sent me a civil letter. They wrote back - with a threat about how large the fine will be when they haul me in.
The fun part? I don't have a television. But I'm not telling them that until they ask politely. Yes, it's probably stupid and it's certainly obstinate but I refuse to be intimidated.
Now, of course, with them making a move like this I actually feel like I might *want* to give them money. It's a pretty cool thing to do and I'm proud of the BBC for being forward looking and generally a great service. So that's what this is all about folks. They are just trying to shame me into paying up. The worked out what my buttons were and pushed them. As soon as I hand over the cash, the whole thing will go away. It's a freaking trap I tell you.
Fortunately for all of you I'm holding out for them to switch to ogg for their radio streams before I buy a TV license. You should be safe to enjoy this content for another couple of decades. My present to all of you!
Beep beep.
From TFA: Azureus is best known for developing a BitTorrent client, or program, that allows large media files to be easily shared over the internet.
That's just... so... gah. I mean, it's one thing when the media oversimplifies things, that at least doesn't hurt anything, but in this case they make it sound like Azureus invented bit torrent!
Also: "...a BitTorrent client, or program..." Now this is more like the oversimplification thing, but that's just plain stupid. Was that really a neccessary clarification to make? I mean, I'm not saying that everyone out there would understand what a client is, but defining it as a program just seems unneccessary. I think the meaning of a client is at least somewhat obvious from the context.
I hope they make Balls of Steel available. That has to be the funniest show I've seen in months. The Bunny Boiler, Annoying Devil, Big Gay Folllwing and Alex's games are hilarious. Check YouTube out if you haven't seen the show yet.
This is yet another attempt to curtail my rights online. Azureus has sold its soul to the content mafia and is attempting to destroy the Bittorrent community. Utorrent has also sold out to Hollywood fascists. The way I see it, corporate software is the problem here. Do you ever notice native Linux torrent clients don't have this problem? Thank the gods for *nix torrent clients, like rTorrent and Deluge. If you're still on Winblows, sorry charlie. That's what happens when you let Micro$oft and other proprietary Nazis on your box. To all the corporate whores who want a piece of my upload bandwidth to further your goals of DRM, I say "Fuck you". Fuck co-optation and selling out; your infected files will go straight to /dev/null, assholes.
It seems to me that they're already delivering good tv to a British audience via a technology known as 'broadcast'. I would gladly trade places with you. 99% of current American television is utter mindless crap. About the only TV I watch these days is the smattering of BBC programs that PBS airs, including the BBC news, which along with the Canadian CBC news (I'm close to the border) is about the only source of reality-based news on the air in the colonies these days.
Well I was all set to say YIPPI till I read it will be laden with DRM snot. NO thanks shit heads.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Hmm, there seem to be a large absence of video recorders in Britain. If someone wants to make a killing, they should convert VCR's and Tivo's to PAL format. The market is ripe!
Compu-a says........yes?
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Azureus Network and Zuedo are dubious organizations while the iTunes Store is a respectable and reputable business. Any DRM system is bad, but at least Apple system is somewhat acceptable, you can play tv shows, songs and audiobooks simultaneously on 5 computers (movies only on 3 computers). I spent about $300 on TV shows from iTunes (about 70GB), mostly brand new documentaries which are not available on DVDs yet. In general PBS shows are MUCH CHEAPER on iTunes than on DVD (usually 4 to 8 times cheaper with some exceptions)
If BBC shows would be available on iTunes at the regular price, $1.99 per episode, I would buy some of them. I would never buy anything from Azureus or Zuedo.
This would be the only way to actually deal with torrents. They're here, and they're here to stay. If they crack down on torrent sites, like they try now, something new will come into existance, if nothing else, people will post torrent hashes on usenet. It's not like you could technically stop the distribution of content.
The only way to really deal with it is to give it some leeway while trying to make some revenue, somehow, out of it all. The fact that those files will be tacked down with DRM will surely keep this from flying, but generally the idea is a good one. It could've been done with a "members only" torrent tracker (where you gotta pay the BBC to become a member), with the torrent info only available on their tracker.
THEN it is possible to crack down on sites offering that torrent, too, because the torrent hash itself is owned by the BBC, not by someone who just "allows" others to use it. It's their 'content', so to speak.
Yes, that could've been a success. Devaluating it by adding enough DRM to weigh it down certainly doesn't help it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We'll be in for a treat if they release all of the surviving Doctor Who episodes online!
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
People here on Slashdot in various countries make a connection with people in countries where services are offered. For example, I live in the U.S. I've quite like to see the programs from Channel 4 that they have available online. But that's currently U.K. only and is not likely to change. (I WANT to see Green Wing's Xmas Special) So, if someone in the U.K. is willing, we can establish private VPN connections between our machines and route specific traffic overseas via the VPN. Then it would be as if I was in the U.K. and the other person was in the U.S. for various services they may want to access here. Simple.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
"The titles will be protected by digital rights management software to prevent the programmes being traded illegally on the internet."
Has anyone found a way to leave feedback with either Azureus/Zudeo or the correct BBC division over this deal? In addition to not buying their product, I'd love to let either company know that the DRM is the only thing preventing me from throwing money at them, which is true. I would have liked to do the same for the equally flawed Amazon Unbox service, but never found a way to. In addition to weak sales, hopefully enough anti-DRM feedback would help get the point across.
iTunes movies are DRM crippled, but I still found season 2 of LOST to be worth the paltry $2.00 per episode fee when I got behind on the show and wanted to catch up. I'd like it if Apple would allow me to at least burn the episodes to a DVD so I could watch them on my DVD player, but alas I can't. The solution is simply to hook my PC up to the TV, which is a fairly simple process.
If this service let's me download episodes of Red Dwarf for a similar or a smaller fee... I would be intrigued. I wouldn't really care if they have DRM or not, but it'd be nice to at least be able to burn a DVD for myself.
It all depends on the pricing model, whether or not it'll be worth it to download the episodes, or just go out and buy the DVDs.
Either way, more legal content available is a good thing.
OK, my first thought here was "damn, one of them guys who can't differentiate between protocols and client applications". But no, turns out they were talking about Zureo (http://www.zudeo.com/), a separate app/business model which may yet require payment for their service.
/. crew to answer:
So, there's two questions out for the
1) Was this move anticipated when the Azureus app was first released? I.e. gather a following and then move on with the name?
2) How much is a "community name" like Azureus worth these days, appearing on the news?
-DaPhil
I hope series are going to be put together into reasonably priced packages. Sometimes it seems like the BBC has one cash generating property, and they are going to milk it for all it is worth.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
From TFA: "The titles will be protected by digital rights management software to prevent the programmes being traded illegally on the internet."
Overlooking the fact that they spelled "programs" incorrectly (this is, after all, for the US market), media outlets still don't "get it" that DRM is a non-starter with many consumers.
So near, and yet so worthless. Oh well.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I know, I know, you were mostly joking about how people in the UK don't seem to be able to record things.
But I did want to mention that they do have TiVo in the UK.
I went to the Azureus networks download site: http://www.zudeo.com/
The banner says Code name: ZUDEO powered by Azureus 3.0
Copyright 2006 Azureus Inc
I don't know if this is from the same people that brought us the open source Azureus Client, but it looks like it may be.
First utorrent, now Azureus, What next.
"It's also only available in the US."
It is worse than that. It is only available to Windows users. Is the BBC a subsidiary of Microsoft?
My faith is expressed through Nihilism. Do you understand?
as for me, my isp blocks http access to .torrent files through a transparent proxy server, so unless i tunnel through their proxy server, i won't be getting it.
I read it, and thought wow! Then noticed the DRM bit, got a bit disappointed. Why can't we have a emusic for movies ?
Does the license fee apply to monitors as well as TVs? You could just get a monitor (no tuner circuit, thus no capability of watching BBC) and use that to watch the DVDs.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
as not enough people use them, for anybody to even offer the makers a token ammount of money for commercializing them.
So I suspect none of them will ever go 'to the dark side'
taking out your backups, exactly why can't you download the same thing again merely incurring Apple's bandwidth fees?
Possibly your bored of the documentary, why shouldn't you be allowed to sell it, as you would a DVD?
You decide iTunes and your ipod are rubbish and you want to change to another platform - why do you have to rebuy it all again (likewise VHS->DVD)?
and have no problem paying my license fee, purely on the basis of what it costs me and what I get.(although I dislike the fact I'm compelled to pay it merely for owning equipment capable of receiving the signal)
Maybe partnering with Zudeo (or whoever) the BBC should roll the license fee out worldwide - $10 a month and you get access to their entire live and archived output. For a start it would reduce my license fee.
So, will we be getting a discount by uploading to other clients? After all, it's my upstream bandwidth.
If not, what's to stop me from blocking the outbound connections or capping them at 1 byte/sec?
Hopefully (in a future "wave") we'll finally have episodes of Blake's 7 legally available in the states (instead of either bootlegging them or getting them in a PAL VHS tape or Region 2 DVD from the UK).
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
I think it would be worth mentioning that this is not a) available worldwide, and b) free (beer or speech).
Nothing to see here, move on.
At the moment, there are major attempts to define P2P as ipso facto piracy in many countries, the US included. It will also seriously impact attempts by some US companies to cripple access to British programs in the US. As crippled and as limited as this is, I fully expect major lawsuits to follow. If the older, unprofitable material was made for free, the lawyers would be sending Polonium, not cease-and-desists.
I fully expect the BBC to migrate towards making all material below the margin of being worth selling available for free for everyone. At this time, however, there are enough media outlets abusing anti-competitive laws to guarantee their own little fiefdoms and monopolies that the BBC is probably more concerned with not getting blasted out of existence by intellectual property tyrants than it is with meeting what is likely their ultimate objective.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
They said 'going to' nearly a year ago.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
it took me just a few minutes of guesswork to avoid having to use the zudeo software at all; I didn't install it. When you click to download, it saves a .jnlp file which is just an XML wrapper around a URL containing a torrent, then download the torrent and open it with a torrent downloader (shareaza will do nicely). It will save a file called .hdmov, which you just rename so it will open with Quicktime.
Thus who needs zudeo's spyware?
"now they've sold it to be shown on a different channel which we have to pay to receive. Bastards."
ok, so you got to see it a few times for free (subject to licence fee) and now the BBC is trying to sell it to the rest of the world and commercial networks so they can bring in more cash to fund programming.
Would you rather they left it in a basement and just charged more for the licence fee?
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That's silly. All you have to do is actually take part in the moderation, and see the impact your own moderation has, then multiply that by the number of registered users on /., to understand that you're wrong. But you're AC, so you're just speculating out of ignorance, or a troll. If the latter, IHBT, and will HAND.
Makes it sound like bittorrent is currently illegitimate. But they can tell she has a heart of gold. Surely she can be reformed. Just like Miss USA.
Loose lips lose spit.
Wow, crap joke admittedly, but modded redundant? Methinks that the two moderators didn't get the joke, so modded it down. What a pair of children.
If you see this in M2, mark the original moderation as unfair. Hopefully those twats won't get points again. No one else in this discussion has mentioned Ace Rimmer, nor his catchphrase, nor the acronym, so the parents post cannot be redundant!
Couyld you please explain "how to" avoid using Zudeo?