5 ms·

> but UK residents do typically pay for the content whereas those outside the UK are unable to. In essence, what you're saying boils down to "it's already paid

> but UK residents do typically pay for the content whereas those outside the UK are unable to. In essence, what you're saying boils down to "it's already paid for, but nobody else can have it anyway". It's unreasonable and there is no need to make excuses for this behaviour.

mtsr 5y ago
It's generally down to the terms for content that networks (BBC in this case) buy licenses to. The IP owners don't want the networks to allow the whole world access to that content for the price that the network is willing to pay to show it to their region.
- subpixel 5y ago
  But also, and mostly, in reverse. The BBC is the producer and license owner of a ton of programming, and rather than offer that to the world for a subscription fee, they choose to offer it to select partners (previously mainly PBS, now Netflix and Amazon) for a licensing fee, or sometimes in a coproduction arrangement. This is big money, up-front, with no need to build out a global delivery system or deal with millions of customers.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    The BBC aren't allowed to. There are very strict terms in which the BBC can operate. So what they have to do is sell to subsidiaries like BBC America. And there in lies the licensing issues described in the GPs post. This is one of those classic examples of something that looks really simple from an outsiders perspective but once you have to deal with the details you realise it's anything but simple. And through no fault of the BBC either, I might add. Various commercial stations and news outlets have campaigned relentlessly to shut the Beeb down. It's a miracle the service is still operating, even if their hands are tightly tied.
    - kmeisthax 5y ago
      More generally, geographic licensing maximizes revenue without damaging brand goodwill for the vast majority of customers, so pretty much everyone is going to do it. Hell, I thought the practice would die (or at least slow down) when Netflix started transitioning away from syndicated TV and movies; this never happened. Netflix will totally geoblock their own shows so they can, say, release a cartoon on a weekly basis in Japan but in binge-watchable chunks in America. You will continue to see anything more premium than a high-subscriber-count YouTube channel be geoblocked until and unless one of two things happens: - Geoblocking gets so heinous that it starts to push people away from shows and services, beyond ordinary subscriber churn. This is unlikely - the US is the biggest market for a lot of this stuff, and that's a market full of people who have no desire to watch foreign media ahead of an official release. Hell, most of us don't even have passports, and think that you can just move to another country by asking politely. - Some country or trading bloc gets enough of a bug up their butt about getting releases late that they start amending copyright law to ban the practice. AFAIK, I've heard Australia was considering banning region locked DVD players at one point; and that the EU was considering forcing online video providers to license content on an EU-wide basis.
      - withinboredom 5y ago
        > the US is the biggest market for a lot of this stuff I have a funny feeling that a very large percentage of that market comes from VPNs. Everyone I know watches the US Netflix and we aren’t in the US.
        867-5309 5y ago
        of all the streaming services, I have found Netflix to be the one that cares least about geoblocking. they appear to care on the outside to appease the production outlets, but on the inside they don't appear to block or discourage VPNs at all. unlike the BBC who actively, and aggressively, geoblock their content
  - nindalf 5y ago
    GP wanted to watch BBC News in particular. I don’t think there’s any licensing issue with that, surely?
    - Mindwipe 5y ago
      > GP wanted to watch BBC News in particular. I don’t think there’s any licensing issue with that, surely? Ha! There's SO SO MUCH. More than you can imagine.
  - Mindwipe 5y ago
    > The BBC is the producer and license owner of a ton of programming The BBC is complete license owner of virtually zero programming. Almost all (as in 99.9%+) of their content uses substantial third party copyright works where the cost implications of selling internationally still apply (just the music rights alone will drive you mad, and it's far from uncommon for BBC content that is shown in the UK to have a different soundtrack to the internationally sold version to the likes of Netflix due to the licensing cost and complexity). It is also worth noting that the BBC makes a lot less than people think, especially if you consider BBC studios to be a quasi-separate production entity now (which it is!).
867-5309 5y ago
totally agree. I had no end of shit trying to watch BBC News channel from abroad. I'm a UK national, I own a house in the UK, I pay UK taxes, I pay your stupid TV licence fee, you're broadcasting live over 3 separate CDNs, just let me watch the fucking news. I eventually subscribed to an illegal IPTV service for that one sodding channel. I don't even need the other 17,000 channels. the BBC drove me to it
- mavhc 5y ago
  Not running a vpn from your house?
  - 867-5309 5y ago
    the tenants wouldn't approve (they pay for elec and internet). plus I'm away for twelve months so no chance of onsite troubleshooting, physical reboots after power outages, etc.
    - larkost 5y ago
      So, you are saying that the TV license you are paying for is actually being used by the renters in the house you own. Is that a fair statement? That puts a bit of a different spin on it.
      - 867-5309 5y ago
        due to the timing of things, I prepaid for ten twelfths of their residence. I didn't seek recompense as I knew I would be consuming one channel. I am unaware if the tenants use a tv
- herbstein 5y ago
  Completely off-topic: great choice of name. That number is burned into my mind, and will be forever
  - mikecarlton 5y ago
danpalmer 5y ago
Yes you're right, I was giving a reason more than an excuse. I don't think they should be doing it.
criddell 5y ago
It really hasn't already been paid for. For example, say you are a composer who wrote some music for a BBC series. You get paid more for something in wide release than for something released only in the UK.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> what you're saying boils down to "it's already paid for, but nobody else can have it anyway" This is already paid for but the next show isn’t. If the BBC were sold to the public as a soft dollar expenditure, it would be one thing. But it wasn’t. I’m not sure it could be in today’s Britain. Ignoring the freeloader problem threatens the support on which the BBC’s funding depends. This is a debate with reasonable arguments on both sides.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
andyjh 5y ago
Licensing issues aside, it would cost _additional_ money to actually serve all that content to a global audience (shipping bytes over the internet isn't free).
- 867-5309 5y ago
  yet they deliver over 3 CDNs, yes THREE, for a maximum viewership of one country

mtsr 5y ago

It's generally down to the terms for content that networks (BBC in this case) buy licenses to. The IP owners don't want the networks to allow the whole world access to that content for the price that the network is willing to pay to show it to their region.

subpixel 5y ago
But also, and mostly, in reverse. The BBC is the producer and license owner of a ton of programming, and rather than offer that to the world for a subscription fee, they choose to offer it to select partners (previously mainly PBS, now Netflix and Amazon) for a licensing fee, or sometimes in a coproduction arrangement. This is big money, up-front, with no need to build out a global delivery system or deal with millions of customers.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  The BBC aren't allowed to. There are very strict terms in which the BBC can operate. So what they have to do is sell to subsidiaries like BBC America. And there in lies the licensing issues described in the GPs post. This is one of those classic examples of something that looks really simple from an outsiders perspective but once you have to deal with the details you realise it's anything but simple. And through no fault of the BBC either, I might add. Various commercial stations and news outlets have campaigned relentlessly to shut the Beeb down. It's a miracle the service is still operating, even if their hands are tightly tied.
  - kmeisthax 5y ago
    More generally, geographic licensing maximizes revenue without damaging brand goodwill for the vast majority of customers, so pretty much everyone is going to do it. Hell, I thought the practice would die (or at least slow down) when Netflix started transitioning away from syndicated TV and movies; this never happened. Netflix will totally geoblock their own shows so they can, say, release a cartoon on a weekly basis in Japan but in binge-watchable chunks in America. You will continue to see anything more premium than a high-subscriber-count YouTube channel be geoblocked until and unless one of two things happens: - Geoblocking gets so heinous that it starts to push people away from shows and services, beyond ordinary subscriber churn. This is unlikely - the US is the biggest market for a lot of this stuff, and that's a market full of people who have no desire to watch foreign media ahead of an official release. Hell, most of us don't even have passports, and think that you can just move to another country by asking politely. - Some country or trading bloc gets enough of a bug up their butt about getting releases late that they start amending copyright law to ban the practice. AFAIK, I've heard Australia was considering banning region locked DVD players at one point; and that the EU was considering forcing online video providers to license content on an EU-wide basis.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      > the US is the biggest market for a lot of this stuff I have a funny feeling that a very large percentage of that market comes from VPNs. Everyone I know watches the US Netflix and we aren’t in the US.
      - 867-5309 5y ago
        of all the streaming services, I have found Netflix to be the one that cares least about geoblocking. they appear to care on the outside to appease the production outlets, but on the inside they don't appear to block or discourage VPNs at all. unlike the BBC who actively, and aggressively, geoblock their content
- nindalf 5y ago
  GP wanted to watch BBC News in particular. I don’t think there’s any licensing issue with that, surely?
  - Mindwipe 5y ago
    > GP wanted to watch BBC News in particular. I don’t think there’s any licensing issue with that, surely? Ha! There's SO SO MUCH. More than you can imagine.
- Mindwipe 5y ago
  > The BBC is the producer and license owner of a ton of programming The BBC is complete license owner of virtually zero programming. Almost all (as in 99.9%+) of their content uses substantial third party copyright works where the cost implications of selling internationally still apply (just the music rights alone will drive you mad, and it's far from uncommon for BBC content that is shown in the UK to have a different soundtrack to the internationally sold version to the likes of Netflix due to the licensing cost and complexity). It is also worth noting that the BBC makes a lot less than people think, especially if you consider BBC studios to be a quasi-separate production entity now (which it is!).

867-5309 5y ago

totally agree. I had no end of shit trying to watch BBC News channel from abroad. I'm a UK national, I own a house in the UK, I pay UK taxes, I pay your stupid TV licence fee, you're broadcasting live over 3 separate CDNs, just let me watch the fucking news. I eventually subscribed to an illegal IPTV service for that one sodding channel. I don't even need the other 17,000 channels. the BBC drove me to it

mavhc 5y ago
Not running a vpn from your house?
- 867-5309 5y ago
  the tenants wouldn't approve (they pay for elec and internet). plus I'm away for twelve months so no chance of onsite troubleshooting, physical reboots after power outages, etc.
  - larkost 5y ago
    So, you are saying that the TV license you are paying for is actually being used by the renters in the house you own. Is that a fair statement? That puts a bit of a different spin on it.
    - 867-5309 5y ago
      due to the timing of things, I prepaid for ten twelfths of their residence. I didn't seek recompense as I knew I would be consuming one channel. I am unaware if the tenants use a tv
herbstein 5y ago
Completely off-topic: great choice of name. That number is burned into my mind, and will be forever
- mikecarlton 5y ago

danpalmer 5y ago

Yes you're right, I was giving a reason more than an excuse. I don't think they should be doing it.

criddell 5y ago

It really hasn't already been paid for. For example, say you are a composer who wrote some music for a BBC series. You get paid more for something in wide release than for something released only in the UK.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> what you're saying boils down to "it's already paid for, but nobody else can have it anyway" This is already paid for but the next show isn’t. If the BBC were sold to the public as a soft dollar expenditure, it would be one thing. But it wasn’t. I’m not sure it could be in today’s Britain. Ignoring the freeloader problem threatens the support on which the BBC’s funding depends. This is a debate with reasonable arguments on both sides.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

andyjh 5y ago

Licensing issues aside, it would cost _additional_ money to actually serve all that content to a global audience (shipping bytes over the internet isn't free).

867-5309 5y ago
yet they deliver over 3 CDNs, yes THREE, for a maximum viewership of one country