5 ms·

For Game of Thrones it's not such an issue, but I do feel bad if there's e.g. an old BBC film I want to watch, but there's no way to get it legally, sometimes a

For Game of Thrones it's not such an issue, but I do feel bad if there's e.g. an old BBC film I want to watch, but there's no way to get it legally, sometimes at all. Other times it's £20 for a DVD. No way I'm paying three months of Netflix subscription (or a large fraction of a license fee) for that. The BBC has such an extensive and amazing back catalogue of content they wholly own. Why they don't chuck it on iPlayer is beyond me. I know they have it all on a digital platform internally already, format is not an issue.

toyg 9y ago
> Why they don't chuck it on iPlayer is beyond me. Because they would devalue new productions. The more license-payers watch old movies, the less they will watch Top Gear or Strictly or whatever it's supposed to be big now. This would mean less interest in new productions, less stuff sold by BBCWorld (or whatever it's called these days), less money going around... like all companies and organisations, the BBC wants to grow, not to stall.
- mattmanser 9y ago
  No, I believe it's because it's against the law. They have rules on what they can and can't do because they're publicly funded. It's to allow the commercial operators a way to compete. And even if it's not, they have to operate in a political context, the Tories are always looking for an excuse to shutdown the BBC so their donors can pillage the public commons and eat the corpse.
  - nailer 9y ago
    Perhaps a commercial BBC that could actually sell it stuff to people who want it would help a) the BBC b) people who want it? > Tories are always looking for an excuse to shutdown the BBC so their donors can pillage the public commons and eat the corpse. Or maybe it's because it's not the government's job to run TV channels and radio stations, nor is it the public's job to fund them?
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      > Or maybe it's because it's not the government's job to run TV channels and radio stations, nor is it the public's job to fund them? Public broadcasting is great, so many wonderful shows in the US would not have been able to have been made without it. But go ahead, sacrifice public media to the god of market economics. You might not miss it when it's gone, but it will be a sad day indeed.
      - nailer 9y ago
        Comparing PBS to the BBC doesn't make sense: PBS isn't publicly funded nor is it mandatory to donate to PBS.
        vinceguidry 9y ago
        Feels to me like a distinction without a difference. Public arts funding has always been something we want more of.
        nailer 9y ago
        Then it sounds like you'd be OK with the BBC moving to a PBS style funding model. Great, me too.
        vinceguidry 9y ago
        I don't know what part of "more public arts funding" made you think that, but whatevs.
        nailer 9y ago
        The fact you were happy with the PBS funding model in the comment I replied to.
  - toyg 9y ago
    The Charter calls for "distinctive output" but it also calls for umpteen other things including innovation in service delivery. They cannot "distort the market" but if the market is minuscule or simply does not exist (how many streaming services have access to the BBC back-catalog?), there is nothing to distort. I do share the political outlook but I don't think that's what really matters in this particular circumstance. There might be occasional issues with royalties/copyrights and whatnot (production contracts in the media industry are notoriously byzantine), but imho the main factor remains a strategic choice.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  This idea is based on the assumption people who'd watch stuff from BBC's old catalogue would, instead, watch Top Gear or Strictly. These are probably a couple different demographics, distinct enough to warrant separate delivery options.
- neffy 9y ago
  No, it's not that. The BBC is tied up in the same licensing mess as everybody else in the media industry. Everything is licensed... scripts, individual rights, director rights, ownership is transferred, tracked, ends up with third parties. It's a complete, unholy, worldwide mess of ownership spaghetti under the hood, and that's at some level why the only alternative is torrents.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    And much of it predates people even thinking about this stuff. Thus, you have a TV series like Northern Exposure for which the music was a fairly integral part and you can't even buy DVDs with all the original music included. Even today, I was reading that one Black Mirror episode for which the closing song was just so on had licensed it for 15 years. Which is a long time but hardly forever.
    - ada1981 9y ago
      Wierd to License something like that for only a few years. What happens in 15 years? They have to renegotiate a license or re-edit the show?
      - Mindwipe 9y ago
        Yes. Which is quite common (Scrubs for example has had to re-edit library music into most of it's episodes for most uses, instead of the original tracks).
        ada1981 9y ago
        What a pain in the ass. If you own the song, seems like you'd want to avoid leaving money on the table. I wonder how common relicensing is vs. editing.
        ghaff 9y ago
        The problem is that when it comes time to relicense, there's probably very little value in the show left to the studio. And whoever is negotiating the relicense couldn't care less about the artistic vision of the 10 year old show's creator who picked the original songs. And whoever the right holder of the music is probably doesn't want to offer steep discounts because it weakens their negotiating leverage on other matters.
Mindwipe 9y ago
> The BBC has such an extensive and amazing back catalogue of content they wholly own. No it doesn't. The BBC wholly owns virtually nothing. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140603125500/http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview-c4e-sub-bbc.pdf http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140603125500/htt... http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/contributor_rights.shtml?chapter=1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/contributor_rights.shtml?chapte... https://www.theguardian.com/law/2010/nov/25/bbc-archive-online-access-law https://www.theguardian.com/law/2010/nov/25/bbc-archive-onli... And more importantly, the things it does wholly own, it very rarely knows, legally, that it does wholly own, as the records aren't reliable. So it would involve a vast amount of legal time and risk to investigate.
- nabeards 9y ago
  It would be awesome if blockchain could solve the issue of rights management at the scale of media content. Tracking ownership of the individual parts (script, logos, video, etc) as well as the transfer of ownership of those parts.
  - duskwuff 9y ago
    The underlying data is unreliable. Throwing technology at it doesn't change that.
    - nabeards 9y ago
      Agreed; but could we start with new media? This is a real nightmare for the industry.
gaius 9y ago
The BBC has such an extensive and amazing back catalogue of content they wholly own. Why they don't chuck it on iPlayer is beyond me The infuriating thing is, we’ve already paid for it. Anything BBC should be “free” to anyone who had paid their TV license in the last year it was broadcast. We own it already, it’s sheer extortion to make you pay full price for a DVD.
- Mindwipe 9y ago
  > The infuriating thing is, we’ve already paid for it. No you didn't. For the example, the BBC typically only pays independent production companies (which is about 40% of their output) a fraction of what the content costs to make because the indie retains distribution rights afterwards and can make up the rest with sales. Same with scriptwriters, or actors.
paulie_a 9y ago
The creators of iPlayer must have had a meeting with the specific goal of making it worse than realplayer
- fredley 9y ago
  Is it that bad? Compared to any other TV services' online offerings, it's leagues ahead.

toyg 9y ago

> Why they don't chuck it on iPlayer is beyond me. Because they would devalue new productions. The more license-payers watch old movies, the less they will watch Top Gear or Strictly or whatever it's supposed to be big now. This would mean less interest in new productions, less stuff sold by BBCWorld (or whatever it's called these days), less money going around... like all companies and organisations, the BBC wants to grow, not to stall.

mattmanser 9y ago
No, I believe it's because it's against the law. They have rules on what they can and can't do because they're publicly funded. It's to allow the commercial operators a way to compete. And even if it's not, they have to operate in a political context, the Tories are always looking for an excuse to shutdown the BBC so their donors can pillage the public commons and eat the corpse.
- nailer 9y ago
  Perhaps a commercial BBC that could actually sell it stuff to people who want it would help a) the BBC b) people who want it? > Tories are always looking for an excuse to shutdown the BBC so their donors can pillage the public commons and eat the corpse. Or maybe it's because it's not the government's job to run TV channels and radio stations, nor is it the public's job to fund them?
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    > Or maybe it's because it's not the government's job to run TV channels and radio stations, nor is it the public's job to fund them? Public broadcasting is great, so many wonderful shows in the US would not have been able to have been made without it. But go ahead, sacrifice public media to the god of market economics. You might not miss it when it's gone, but it will be a sad day indeed.
    - nailer 9y ago
      Comparing PBS to the BBC doesn't make sense: PBS isn't publicly funded nor is it mandatory to donate to PBS.
      - vinceguidry 9y ago
        Feels to me like a distinction without a difference. Public arts funding has always been something we want more of.
        nailer 9y ago
        Then it sounds like you'd be OK with the BBC moving to a PBS style funding model. Great, me too.
        vinceguidry 9y ago
        I don't know what part of "more public arts funding" made you think that, but whatevs.
        nailer 9y ago
        The fact you were happy with the PBS funding model in the comment I replied to.
- toyg 9y ago
  The Charter calls for "distinctive output" but it also calls for umpteen other things including innovation in service delivery. They cannot "distort the market" but if the market is minuscule or simply does not exist (how many streaming services have access to the BBC back-catalog?), there is nothing to distort. I do share the political outlook but I don't think that's what really matters in this particular circumstance. There might be occasional issues with royalties/copyrights and whatnot (production contracts in the media industry are notoriously byzantine), but imho the main factor remains a strategic choice.
rbanffy 9y ago
This idea is based on the assumption people who'd watch stuff from BBC's old catalogue would, instead, watch Top Gear or Strictly. These are probably a couple different demographics, distinct enough to warrant separate delivery options.
neffy 9y ago
No, it's not that. The BBC is tied up in the same licensing mess as everybody else in the media industry. Everything is licensed... scripts, individual rights, director rights, ownership is transferred, tracked, ends up with third parties. It's a complete, unholy, worldwide mess of ownership spaghetti under the hood, and that's at some level why the only alternative is torrents.
- ghaff 9y ago
  And much of it predates people even thinking about this stuff. Thus, you have a TV series like Northern Exposure for which the music was a fairly integral part and you can't even buy DVDs with all the original music included. Even today, I was reading that one Black Mirror episode for which the closing song was just so on had licensed it for 15 years. Which is a long time but hardly forever.
  - ada1981 9y ago
    Wierd to License something like that for only a few years. What happens in 15 years? They have to renegotiate a license or re-edit the show?
    - Mindwipe 9y ago
      Yes. Which is quite common (Scrubs for example has had to re-edit library music into most of it's episodes for most uses, instead of the original tracks).
      - ada1981 9y ago
        What a pain in the ass. If you own the song, seems like you'd want to avoid leaving money on the table. I wonder how common relicensing is vs. editing.
        ghaff 9y ago
        The problem is that when it comes time to relicense, there's probably very little value in the show left to the studio. And whoever is negotiating the relicense couldn't care less about the artistic vision of the 10 year old show's creator who picked the original songs. And whoever the right holder of the music is probably doesn't want to offer steep discounts because it weakens their negotiating leverage on other matters.

Mindwipe 9y ago

> The BBC has such an extensive and amazing back catalogue of content they wholly own. No it doesn't. The BBC wholly owns virtually nothing. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140603125500/http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview-c4e-sub-bbc.pdf http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140603125500/htt... http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/contributor_rights.shtml?chapter=1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/contributor_rights.shtml?chapte... https://www.theguardian.com/law/2010/nov/25/bbc-archive-online-access-law https://www.theguardian.com/law/2010/nov/25/bbc-archive-onli... And more importantly, the things it does wholly own, it very rarely knows, legally, that it does wholly own, as the records aren't reliable. So it would involve a vast amount of legal time and risk to investigate.

nabeards 9y ago
It would be awesome if blockchain could solve the issue of rights management at the scale of media content. Tracking ownership of the individual parts (script, logos, video, etc) as well as the transfer of ownership of those parts.
- duskwuff 9y ago
  The underlying data is unreliable. Throwing technology at it doesn't change that.
  - nabeards 9y ago
    Agreed; but could we start with new media? This is a real nightmare for the industry.

gaius 9y ago

The BBC has such an extensive and amazing back catalogue of content they wholly own. Why they don't chuck it on iPlayer is beyond me The infuriating thing is, we’ve already paid for it. Anything BBC should be “free” to anyone who had paid their TV license in the last year it was broadcast. We own it already, it’s sheer extortion to make you pay full price for a DVD.

Mindwipe 9y ago
> The infuriating thing is, we’ve already paid for it. No you didn't. For the example, the BBC typically only pays independent production companies (which is about 40% of their output) a fraction of what the content costs to make because the indie retains distribution rights afterwards and can make up the rest with sales. Same with scriptwriters, or actors.

paulie_a 9y ago

The creators of iPlayer must have had a meeting with the specific goal of making it worse than realplayer

fredley 9y ago
Is it that bad? Compared to any other TV services' online offerings, it's leagues ahead.