Possible lockdown of iPlayer

Cosimo · 29 Apr 2016 at 06:19

Happy to see it tied down but only if tied down to the actual license number. But knowing the BBC they'll waste millions on getting it implemented so it might not be such a good idea after all.

Tute · 29 Apr 2016 at 06:23

Given how long it's taken them to begin to roll out HTML5 i'd expect this around 2040.

Also, why not just roll TV licencing into tax now? It's just so much easier.

bayo000 · 29 Apr 2016 at 08:00

About time. It's ridiculous that people that don't pay TV licence can use iPlayer for free.

Pawnless Endgame · 29 Apr 2016 at 08:14

I've no idea what's on telly these days. Haven't used a TV or TV-on-demand for years, and wouldn't know how to operate a nowaday TV set with the 3 or 4 remotes that come with it!!

I'll just stick with radio and Spotify thanks

Freefaller · 29 Apr 2016 at 11:29

Could you not just "borrow" someone's licence? I think it will be quite hard to police and enforce.

Werewolf · 29 Apr 2016 at 11:32

Freefaller said:
Could you not just "borrow" someone's licence? I think it will be quite hard to police and enforce.

That's my thought.

People already share things like forum log ins (which has always struck me as strange, especially if the forum is free), Netflix etc with friends.

All it will do is cost more money in running call centres to help people who can't remember their log in credentials and can't work their way around the reset system.

doofer · 29 Apr 2016 at 13:15

Ridiculous idea as it will be far too easy to circumvent, also any non-American that uses 'License' instead of 'Licence' should be forced by Law to watch only US TV as punishment.

valve90210 · 29 Apr 2016 at 13:35

I'm quite lucky, where I work we have a video system part of which is a feature whereby I can search through a huge amount of the BBC catalogue and it's planned to have pretty much all BBC output from 1950 onwards available, so there's obviously at some point in time plans for the whole BBC back catalogue to be available digitally so it could potentially be something that could be made available to subscribers...

matthab · 29 Apr 2016 at 14:05

Nothing much worth watching on the BBC nowadays anyway...

Werewolf · 29 Apr 2016 at 14:39

valve90210 said:
I'm quite lucky, where I work we have a video system part of which is a feature whereby I can search through a huge amount of the BBC catalogue and it's planned to have pretty much all BBC output from 1950 onwards available, so there's obviously at some point in time plans for the whole BBC back catalogue to be available digitally so it could potentially be something that could be made available to subscribers...

That sounds like it's possibly for distributors looking to licence the content and finding clips from the archive rather than for the BBC themselves to make directly available to subscribers

(IIRC they've got a system for that purpose).

But unfortunately that is a long way off them having the legal ability to actually make the content available to the public themselves (if for no other reason than the cost of them sorting out the fees payable), as it's one thing for them to have digital versions available in house or to be viewed as a "catalogue" for distributors/sales to other broadcasters but completely another for them to have the ability to distribute them in any complete format to the general public (as opposed to say a 30 second clip in a news item or documentary).

MooMoo444 · 29 Apr 2016 at 16:19

Mynight said:
I would assume all liscenses have a unique identifier or just confirm address. Use that to prove payment.

Use someone elses address

Mynight · 29 Apr 2016 at 16:22

MooMoo444 said:
Use someone elses address

They'll send you a code through snailmail that you have to enter.

However in reality it'll probably just take a few million to end up with a system that takes any address as a license payers address.