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BBC: ISPs Should Assume VPN Users Are Pirates

Posted by Soulskill on from the arrr-me-hearties dept.

An anonymous reader sends this news from TorrentFreak: After cutting its teeth as a domestic broadcaster, the BBC is spreading its products all around the globe. Shows like Top Gear have done extremely well overseas and the trend of exploiting other shows in multiple territories is set to continue. As a result, the BBC is now getting involved in the copyright debates of other countries, notably Australia, where it operates four subscription channels. Following submissions from Hollywood interests and local ISPs, BBC Worldwide has now presented its own to the Federal Government. Its text shows that the corporation wants new anti-piracy measures to go further than ever before.

The BBC begins by indicating a preference for a co-operative scheme, one in which content owners and ISPs share responsibility to "reduce and eliminate" online copyright infringement. ... "Since the evolution of peer-to-peer software protocols to incorporate decentralized architectures, which has allowed users to download content from numerous host computers, the detection and prosecution of copyright violations has become a complex task. This situation is further amplified by the adoption of virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers by some users, allowing them to circumvent geo-blocking technologies and further evade detection," the BBC explains.

10 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Another reason to use VPNs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Skip the vpn, just change your DNS servers to non-comcast ones:
    8.8.8.8
    8.8.4.4

  2. Contacting BBC, via VPN by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Methinks BBC did what they did on the advise of their lawyers, and I am sure that there are still plenty of good people within BBC who can discern good from bad, right from wrong

    So ... why don't all of us contact BBC and tell them what we think ?

    Their website is at http://bbc.com/

    You can contact them via http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/cont...

    Or file a complaint at http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaint...

    Their worldservice email address is at worldservice.letters@bbc.co.uk

    Their FB page is at https://www.facebook.com/bbcwo...

    Let them know, let BBC know how wrong they are about VPN

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:Contacting BBC, via VPN by Sarius64 · · Score: 3, Informative

      BBC Right-wing? Have you experienced vertigo for 1,000 hours straight? Give me an example of the BBC ever being right-wing? More like socialists who steal as much tax money as possible to pay themselves exorbitant salaries at the expense of the UK citizens.

    2. Re:Contacting BBC, via VPN by Kjella · · Score: 5, Informative

      There's also that despite their public funding, which means they could give their content away for free, then instead try to leverage it for profit as hard as they can.

      Tax some (UK population) and give benefits to others (rest of the world) is not socialism, generally the rule is everybody pays and everybody gets. If the former doesn't hold, you can't expect the latter to hold either so I perfectly understand BBC Worldwide charging for their content.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  3. Re:Because fuck you BBC by complete+loony · · Score: 4, Informative

    This season, in Australia, we're getting the latest Dr Who episode within 24 hours broadcast on ABC. Plus it's also available on iView. So there's no reason to pirate it.

    However, the ABC doesn't run any advertising. So if you do pirate it, does anyone lose money?

    --
    09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
  4. Re: Another reason to use VPNs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's google.
    Here's level 3
    4.2.2.1
    4.2.2.2

  5. Re:Scaled property rights by TheP4st · · Score: 4, Informative

    I take it you never have heard of Hollywood accounting? https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

    --
    "I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
  6. Re:geo-blocking by pr100 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Surely the question is rather - why should the BBC provide you with content if you're not prepared to give that information?

    The BBC is funded by payments from TV licence holders in the UK. All the content it produces is available free in the UK. It also makes money from selling programmes overseas. If there was no revenue from overseas sales then people in the UK would have to pay a lot more.

    So - why should you get the BBC content for free when you've not contributed to the costs of producing it in the first place?

  7. Re:For my usage of bbc.co.uk.... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's not really the BBC, it's other broadcasters and news outlets. It upsets them greatly that the BBC gives away their "premium content" (news) for free. The BBC dominates radio in the UK and is pretty strong on TV too.

    As such the lobbied successfully to have the BBC limit its free stuff to the UK and charge or advertise everywhere else.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  8. Re:So if I... by Jesrad · · Score: 3, Informative

    Alas, that particular reference might be lost on americans slashdotters.

    --
    Maybe we deserve this world ?