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."

Comments

Maybe a better way?

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:Maybe a better way?

[Hognoxious]

I'm outside the UK but I pay for the BBC. Not through the licence fee, but (I presume) they don't give it to my cable provider for nothing.

Re:Maybe a better way?

[tlhIngan]

I've seen a lot of brits whine for that. I guess they've never seen TV outside UK. I'd gladly pay that money. BBC content is just fantastic, way superior to the ad-supported bullshit you get everywhere else.

Well, there are three models for funding TV, each with its pros and cons.

You have ad-supported networks, where advertising pays for the programming. I'll lump in cable networks as part of the same. Here, the pro is that the end user pays nothing, while the con is the networks produce content to gather the most eyeballs. For a lot of the time, this means serving the lowest common denominator. The other con is that the network will not run content that potentially antagonizes an advertiser, for they represent dollars.

You have subscriber funded networks, where subscribers pay for the content, which include networks like HBO, Netflix and even Amazon Prime. The pro here is the content tends to be better because the only way to make money is to attract subscribers, so they will produce programming that attracts new subscribers. They use lots of analytics to find out who are the ones likely to subscribe, then produce programming that will attract them. The con is, well, you have to pay money, and if you fall out of the desired subscriber demographic, then the programming is less and less interesting to you. The other con is well, they will not produce content that may be potentially controversial because they don't want half their subscriber base leaving.

The third model is state-level funding. The pro here is the ability to produce any kind of content (in free countries) - you can stir controversy, anger advertisers and other groups provided you tell the truth (e.g., pro-consumer advocacy shows). You can also take risks and produce more specialized programming. The cons include, well, people complain about their tax dollars being mis-spent, especially if the programming is contrary to their beliefs. The other con is, well, in less free country, it's an ideal propaganda source.

There's no ideal form of funding for TV, they all have their pros and cons.

Re: Don't care

[negRo_slim]

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.

EU, a continent without borders

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Just Sell It World Wide

[myowntrueself]

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.

Yeah they should load up their websites and apps with ads instead!

What could possibly go wrong...

Re:Why can't we just pay for it?

[Anonymous Coward]

They legally can't. The BBC has to pass the worldwide distribution rights of their shows to their for-profit arm BBC Worldwide which pays them ~20% of the revenues in return (the legal max due to how the BBC is funded). The BBC's special funding is also the source of a number of special headaches for them if the requirement for them to stay a non-profit were dropped they then could sell access worldwide. If you want to bitch about not gaining access iplayer bitch to BBC Worldwide that technically separate business that owns their worldwide rights.

Re:Just Sell It World Wide

[beelsebob]

The entire point of the license fee is that because everyone with a TV has to pay it (no matter their political affiliation), the BBC can be relatively unbiased in their reporting. The second you attach advertising or a subscription to it, they end up biased.

Re:So what if the world sees it?

[caseih]

Probably this crack down is in preparation for BBC offering paid iPlayer access world-wide to a subset of the content. This is something I think a lot of people around the world have wanted for some time.

Re:Charge me.

[beelsebob]

The problem with that is that as soon as people can choose to pay it or not, the BBC has to pander to them to keep them paying - and they become biased. The reason that the BBC isn't as massively biased as CNN or Fox is because its funding is guaranteed, and it doesn't have to pander to audiences.

Re:Charge me.

[beelsebob]

No, the BBC does a reasonable job of being unbiased. They don't get it right all the time, and certainly, in general they have a slight leftward lean, but they do a far far far better job than any channel beholden to people who can choose whether to pay or not. You only need to look at CNN's coverage of who won the democratic debate as an example of how bad it can get if you're beholden to people choosing to pay you.

Re:Just Sell It World Wide

[Anonymous Coward]

I would agree that Al Jazeera does an excellent job on stories about most of the world. When covering the middle east, however, they are pretty much the official voice of the Muslim Brotherhood, being owned by the government of Qatar, and are about as biased as you can get.

Re:So what if the world sees it?

[jo_ham]

The BBC are indeed biased towards the Tory party. But it would be worse if the UK didn't have a public sector broadcaster. Look at Fox News!

It's always hilarious to read about which way they think the BBC is biased. Just in this article alone the BBC has been accused of being both "biased towards the left" and "biased towards the Tories".

I think that might suggest more about the viewer than the organisation - in other words, that it is actually pretty balanced overall.

Re:Charge me.

[_Sharp'r_]

All media has bias. It's inherent in the role of choosing stories to emphasize and how to cover them. People naturally choose what interests them, what they think is important, etc... People generally don't recognize it when they mostly agree with the underlying premise it's based on and thus consider it reasonably "unbiased".

By default, I'd expect the BBC's reporters to have at least an "educated brit" bias, for example. Likely average left-wing politically (with probably a few noticeable exceptions, even more noticeable for their rarity) of the general population based on their chosen profession.

Insisting the BBC is unbiased says more about your own cultural background and personal biases than it does about the BBC. It's like the old joke about how the intelligence of someone is defined by how much they agree with me on everything...