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BBC Begins Blocking VPN Access To iPlayer (torrentfreak.com)
nickweller points out Ars Technica's report (based on news initially on Torrent Freak) that The BBC has begun to block VPN users from its iPlayer video streaming service. From the article: Naturally, VPN providers are already working on a fix for the block, with IPVanish already claiming it has found a way around it.
Earlier this year, a GlobalWebIndex report claimed that up to 60 million people outside the UK had been accessing iPlayer. The BBC disputes this figure however, saying: "These figures simply aren’t plausible. All our evidence shows the vast majority of BBC iPlayer usage is in the UK. BBC iPlayer and the content on it is paid for by UK licence fee payers in the UK and we take appropriate steps to protect access to this content."
Apple??
"BBC iPlayer and the content on it is paid for by UK licence fee payers in the UK and we take appropriate steps to protect access to this content."
That's all well and good, but what about UK licence fee payers who are temporarily outside the UK? Shouldn't they still be able to access the content they are, after all, still paying for? Perhaps a more thoughtful process based on a log in, rather than just a blanket geo-block, might be a better solution.
Mehhhhhh.....
Doesn't seem to be very effective, I'm watching Doctor Who through the iPlayer right now from the US
One would think they would like to spread their culture and/or propaganda to as wide an audience as possible. I don't understand the desire to lock down their content.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Dump the licence fee, switch to subscription, sell BBC programming to anyone in the world who wants it, stop forcing people in the UK who don't want it to pay for it.
The BBC are adamant that they make the highest quality programmes in the world, so I'm sure they'll have no problem finding new subscribers to make up for lost licence revenue.
I don't understand why the BBC does not realize they can sell access to their British services for all of us living abroad.
I would happily pay the equivalent of a TV license fee directly to the BBC to have access to their UK services abroad.
When I say UK services I mean TV and iplayer like it is in the UK - not BBC America.
Sure - local providers have license agreements with the BBC - like PBS buying a lot of content off of the BBC - I don't care: work it out.
You must really hate the Queen.
They need to get paid. If they don't collect the UK's mandated license fee^H^H^H television tax for all viewers, they lose a big chunk of their income. And the sports teams, especially, charge premiums for live content. And easy access for numerous downloaders allows them to organize the content into something that *actually makes sense* instead of the completely crap BBC program scheduling and interface. *No one cares* when the 12 different showings of Doctor Who happened in your particular county and wants to spend 5 minutes drilling down to find them, they just want to see the latest episode, which Iplayer refuses to allow direct access to.
Frankly, that's what makes Bittorrent such a useful tool compared to IPlayer. Let someone else organize the episodes of Downton Abbey or the 47 other chickflick BBC shows, organize them into something useful, and *strip* the excessive Iplayer advertising!
EU, a continent with borders, at least for human smugglers, drugs traffickers, money launderers and undeclared workers, but playing a documentary or tv show from your neighboring country? Than you're an ordinary thief, a pirate, a criminal.
It's easier to kidnap an eastern European blond sex slave, buy a handful of Kalashnikov's in Bulgaria, buy some legal stocks with your black money in Austria, and sell your sex slave in a Dutch brothel, sell your weapons to some radicalized Muslims in Brussels and exchange your legal stocks for some British pounds in London, than it is to stream a freaking boring British TV show in France, even if the one who wants to stream the show is a Brit living in France.
Watch video streams? Are you crazy, you criminal?
Muslim immigrants? Well you take them and give them a warm welcome, and adapt to their culture, you racist.
The reason they've always given is that some of the stuff they broadcast is third party content for which they've only bought the rights to distribute within the UK. Apparently it's too much effort to set up a system whereby they classify content as "OK to distribute worldwide" vs "UK-only" and allow foreigners and ex-pats to watch the former category.
you should check your facts, Downton Abbey is not on the BBC
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
"NO, too hard to implement payments, so just block the shit out of it". - BBC Exec.
Seriously, sometimes I cannot defend BBC any more. They are making it harder every year.
It's like content producers WANT piracy.
its probably the 3rd party that already has the rights sorted in those other countries and have a revenue stream from them, its probably more profitable for the 3rd party to have separate licences.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Then shouldn't the UK license fee payers be the ones who decide whether the content should be protected, or anyone in the world should be allowed to view it? Not the BBC?
Great.. I'm from the UK but I use a paid UK based VPN regardless for other reasons. I pay my license fee but I guess this now means I'm not allowed access BBC content now...
Guess that's going to break my cronjob which downloads the new Danger Mouse each day from BBC iPlayer... :-/
I really wish media companies would stop saying "VPN user = pirate" it's simply not true. There are other use cases for a VPN than piracy and bypassing blockades.
It's a bit like how they automatically think if you're using bittorrent your a pirate. Again not necessarily true as bittorrent can also be used to share legal files.
Granted a some people will use both for piracy but there are users who do not.
I live outside of the UK. I would happily pay BBC the conventional licence fees if they unblocked my IP.
As Anonymous Coward suggested, you could pester BBC Worldwide to create a subscription service to watch BBC-owned programmes and then tell us what form letter you get.
What they don't get is people watch programming through the VPN because they have other way to get it.... If they spent half as much of this effort by negotiating with Netflix or Hulu for US customers to get these shows streamed we wouldn't care about VPNing them through iPlayer and still "paying for them..." It's just the typical ass-backwards corporate thinking at work.
"Our content is great, so we will do everything in our power to prevent people from seeing it."
As a UK resident and license fee payer, I have no problem whatsoever with non-UK residents watching the BBC.. I don't really understand why the BBC has a problem with it, it doesn't affect the amount of money they receive so who cares who watches it?
Money. They want more money.
Ding! Downtown Abbey was an ITV (UK) and PBS (USA) show.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Please take this to its logical conclusion and cease all operations. kthx.
Requiem for the American Dream
If they want this to end it is a very simple thing: Require some verification of your TV license other than a simple "Do you have a TV license, Yes or No?" box which obviously everyone is going to click yes to. If they required you verify in some way your TV license, it would put a stop to all non-license-paying peoples watching locally and abroad, and allow them to keep VPN's at the same time. I don't personally live in the UK but I do make use of a UK-based VPN to watch iplayer content. Its high quality and live, its great. But I know first hand if they required me to validate the TV license I supposedly had there would be no way I could do such a thing. Why BBC doesn't do this is beyond me. Maybe its really that difficult to verify a TV license. You'd think since the BBC was sort of part of the government it would be able to access that sort of information.
So their concern comes down to people accessing content that they aren't paying for? Then charge for access. They estimate 60 million people outside the UK are accessing. That's a large potential market.
I'm currently paying for VPN service to watch shows with iPlayer. I would be happy to just pay them directly.
Imagine a company were to set up a roadwarrior style VPN in their UK office (which for the sake of argument assume a TV licence) for their UK staff who are visiting abroad to access IPlayer from their hotels in the evening. How would the BBC be able to tell that those staff were accessing it via the VPN and not from computers directly connected to the office LAN?
In some cases that's true but the real reason is domestic politics. Here in Oz we have the ABC/SBS which is modelled on the BBC and is almost as old as the BBC. We used to have TV/Radio licenses when I was a kid in the 60's but we dumped them decades ago, it's an antiquated system based on the idea that TV/Radio's are a luxury item. People who pay license fees believe they own something and don't think others should get it for free (UK), people who pay for the same thing via taxes may object to doing so but do not care if others use it (AU).
As with the UK, the ABC/SBS is set up and run as an independent statutory body and is by far the most trusted news outlet in the country, this is despite recent attacks on its integrity from Murdoch's newspapers and his pet politicians. That tactic doesn't work very well with Aussie voters because most Aussies have seen the ABC attacked as biased by ALL sides of politics, its track record over the decades has earned our trust, we value its existance much more than the politicians who determine its budget.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This is only a facet of mass control. Ensure different parts of the global population are given customized propaganda and news. They will never know what really happens in other parts of the world, will believe everything their local branch of Disinformation Inc. tells, them, therefore they will accept without question whatever part they were assigned to play in the big globalized and mind controlled family.
If limiting access to just the UK license fee payers is so important, why is it that BBC Radio is free to listen to online worldwide?
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Presumably they have a database out there of everyone who has paid their TV license. So the BBC could have a registration page where people input their details including their TV license number and (if the details are correct) would let them in.
That way Brits overseas who have a paid up TV license are able to watch BBC stuff but those who don't have a TV license (including those in the UK) aren't able to watch it.
As the summary said, IPVanish must've had a trick up its sleeve. I can confirm that I'm downloading a BBC program(me) using IPVanish, although I actually live in the U.S.
CAPTCHA: imperial
Stop trying to prevent me from watching it. Let me pay the damn license fee for a legal login to that player that is not geo-locked.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Money grabs which don't have to exist encourage piracy, so that's dumb.
Seriously, BBC, the market for bowlderised regional-market crap is negligible when our alternative is to pirate your genuine high-quality content. We'll pay for it!
But you won't bloody sell it to us. Ergo VPNs and torrents.
I am a US citizen, born and raised. And I despise American TV.
It's SHIT. 98% of everything on US TV is shit. Plain and simple.
I subscribe to Dish AT250 and it's SHIT. So called "reality" shows.
The "Science" channel? Where's the science? A bunch of washed up entertainers reviewing youtube idiots, explaining why a shot to the nuts hurts.
The "Learning" channel? Really?
And on and on and on.. What pisses me off is that I have to subscribe to the top tier to get the slightly less shitty channels. $110 a month this costs me.
I also have Amazon Prime which I got for the shipping. I don't really find much to watch on there but I will be watching the Top Gear boys for sure.
I have Hulu Plus and Netflix. Meh.. I also allow my best friend to watch it so it gets some use.
I waited and waited for HBO NOW to come to Roku. I got tired of waiting and bought an Apple TV 3. About 2 months before they announced the ATV 4.
That's ok, I'm buying an ATV4 and a Roku 4 soon anyway. So Dish wanted $20 a month for HBO, that's what it cost me to watch Game of Thrones. As soon as the season was over I canceled it on Dish. Now I pay monthly and ongoing for HBO NOW through Apple. I watch it several times a week.
But overall, I'm extremely disappointed with American TV shows, movies and channels.
I've watched a LOT of BBC material and it's great. I love their science shows where they teach real science without hand puppets and crayons. Think Through the Wormhole with their idiotic animations. Brian Cox vs Morgan Freeman. WTF? Morgan Freeman is not a scientist. Not even a little. Also TTWH is always going on about the "god" thing which is extremely annoying. So much about that show is crap.
I know that there BBC TV License fee is £145.50 a year which is $224.64 in USD. $18.72 a month. If I could have full access to the BBC library through iPlayer I would be happy to pay them that. One thing to consider is that I wouldn't have access to live OTA TV like a resident would so perhaps bring the fee down a little. $15 a month for iPlayer only access would be more than fair and I would be more than happy to pay the BBC. And I don't want Americanized shows, I want pure British content. No American influence, no commercials, no banners covering the lower third of the screen with little people jumping up and down waving and blowing shit up to let me know about a different program coming up 2 months from now. Just the show. I love British humor, I love British culture. I want to see the world through their eyes and experience British life vicariously through Brits because there's a zero chance that I'll ever get to travel there much less live there.
I'm too tied down to life here (family and property) and I just can't travel. British television gives me the chance to learn new things and to see outside of the Americanized bubble that we are trapped in.
I am not defending this short sighted, old fashioned approach but the TV channels, online outlets like Amazon, Apple, Google and DVD/Bluray distributors would go crazy if they setup a legimate way to sell to global audience.
I use VPN against censor and packet logging government and it always made me curious about BBC and other large networks turning blind eye to well known IP blocks. IMHO VPN just postponed the revolution which should take place in commercial video broadcasting for a long time coming. Mp3 piracy woke up the audio industry and now with current bandwidth, 4K and H265, it is time for TV industry.
How exactly do you expect to block every VPN? How do you determine what connections are VPNs and what aren't? I don't get how a country that is so tech savvy can be so tech stupid.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
How does people accessing from outside the UK have any affect on how much the BBC is paid? They receive the same income from the TV licence payers whether or not people access iPlayer via a VPN.
So, the BBC is basically now in a position where it is taking money off the UK licence payer and giving it to multinational commecial enterprises to make programmes for which it only has the UK rights. Where the BBC has been making and exporting its own formats (eg. Strictly Come Dancing / Dancing with the Stars) it has been criticised by conservative politicians for being too populist and unfairly competing with commercial broadcasters for "their" audience.
It does appear that there is a political determination to turn the BBC into something like PBS - domestically-produced dull, worthy, talking-head programmes with a few higher-budget internationally-produced dramas interspersed with desperate appeals for money.
piracy will happen regardless
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
It's pretty hard for the BBC to sell something abroad if they also let those people see it for free.
.... and the only entertaining show they had was Top Gear ....
Not even Doctor Who? Andf if you're speaking in past tense what about ther zillion extraordinarily funny comedies from the 70s to 90s?
The BBC Charter is up for renewal in the very near future and the Tories have an ideological hatred of the BBC (presumably because it's "giving things" to "poor people"), hence they will hold the collective toes of the BBC to the fire in order to extract "value" (i.e. money); the cost of TV licenses for older people (75+ ? Not sure) *was* paid by central government; the BBC now fund that on or they would have had concessions enforced on them elsewhere. With that in mind, overseas access to iPlayer will require a subscription at some point, solely because they need to show the Tories that they're making money. The BBC *are* remarkably unbiased (as mentioned previously, any two-sided altercation will usually attract criticism about the reporting from *both* sides; see Palestine vs Israel ad infinitum for one ongoing example) and as such routinely get shot by both sides. They *have* expanded too much and, like the proper public sector, have a serious problem with incompetent managers who are more concerned with tickboxes than actually getting something done *right*; also like the public sector those same managers have a culture of bullying and blaming the lowest paid in any dispute. But given the choice between the BBC or, for example, any of the commercial broadcasters in the UK (or, god forbid, US commercial TV), there is no contest: the BBC are far, far better in producing content with a) little in the way of brown-nosing external sponsors and b) no bloody adverts.
"They need to get paid."
The problem is: Its easier to subscribe to a VPN service and "permanently" solve the problem than to jump through several hoops to make sure BBC gets paid. I didn't even know there was an option to pay! There is no "pay now" option when iPlayer says: "We're sorry, you're from a foreign country. Go away!"
Awesome share indeed.
What a big pile of bollocks that was, little Englander. I suspect you see race everywhere you look, on account of how weasley and embittered you are. Keep voting Farage mate, you'll get rid of all those brown-skinned people some day.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.