Possible lockdown of iPlayer

Narj · 28 Apr 2016 at 23:53

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ven-password-protection-and-subscription-fee/

John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, is to order the BBC to put password controls on the iPlayer, paving the way for the introduction of a separate subscription fee for the streaming service.

As a current non-licence-payer, I think this is a great idea and I'll subscribe, as long as they put the whole back catalogue online!

What are the chances of the beeb not cottoning on to this?

bainbridge · 28 Apr 2016 at 23:58

As a licence payer I'd like the back catalogue to be available too and have often thought about that when scrolling through, looking for something to watch.

As for it being locked down I really don't mind because I assume I'll be allowed to view what I'm paying to be made.

Malevolence · 28 Apr 2016 at 23:58

The government’s white paper on the future of the corporation, which will be published next month, is said to include plans to force users of the popular iPlayer to sign in before accessing the corporation’s television and radio programming, ensuring that those who do not pay the licence fee are excluded from the service.

I can't see how that'll work at all, surely if people want to watch iPlayer then they'll just lie when registering and say they have a licence. There's no way the BBC can police that.

Mynight · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:01

Malevolence said:
I can't see how that'll work at all, surely if people want to watch iPlayer then they'll just lie when registering and say they have a licence. There's no way the BBC can police that.

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

Narj · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:03

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

Last time I had one, I was given a number which I assume is unique. However, I don't see why they can't offer a subscription service as well for those who don't want to watch live broadcast TV.

Mynight · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:05

The bit Ill find interesting is if they tie it to an account how many accounts can use it. Ie max of four devices to prevent sharing.

Wonder how they'll work with families with more members or devices. An extra charge?

Edit: I was under the impression though that things like Iplayer didn't require a license. So if you need a license for iplayer is it going to extend further to anyone not watching live TV but using things like iplayer.

Werewolf · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:08

Narj said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ven-password-protection-and-subscription-fee/

As a current non-licence-payer, I think this is a great idea and I'll subscribe, as long as they put the whole back catalogue online!

What are the chances of the beeb not cottoning on to this?

There is zero way the BBC could legally put it's whole back catalogue on the Iplayer.
They simply don't have the rights to do so, even on stuff made before they had to (by law) buy in a certain amount of outside content the contracts made with writers, directors, key actors and various other staff from memory was generally for a set number of viewings, or for specific uses.
It's the reason when the new Doctor Who started up they had a long discussion with the estate of Terry Nation, and several classic TV series that involved actors who became big names haven't been seen for years (the actors had the right to refuse to sign for additional distribution).

As for Whittingdale's ideas, they're probably best filed in the circular filing cabinet, you know, the one that gets emptied by the cleaner every night, he's utterly clueless about anything to do with the Media in general, let alone the BBC.

Narj · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:08

Mynight said:
The bit Ill find interesting is if they tie it to an account how many accounts can use it. Ie max of four devices to prevent sharing.

Wonder how they'll work with families with more members or devices. An extra charge?

Now that's tricky seeing as licencing is per household... You'd think they could lock down to several users behind one IP address, but seeing as IPv4 is on its last legs, that falls apart when any ISP is hiding its users behind a pool of IPs!

Werewolf said:
There is zero way the BBC could legally put it's whole back catalogue on the Iplayer.
They simply don't have the rights to do so.

They have the rights to resell stuff to Netflix (there's a lot of BBC stuff on Netflix US that isn't on UK for example) but couldn't do the same in the UK? I hadn't thought of that angle but I'm surprised if they haven't locked down their rights in the UK. :/

I've got a mate that works for the beeb in production so I'll pester him for his thoughts!

Caged · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:11

I'm not really sure Whittingdale should be continuing with his role before it's been established how many of his strings were being pulled by organisations with a vested interest in seeing the demise of the BBC.

Mynight · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:12

Narj said:
Now that's tricky seeing as licencing is per household... You'd think they could lock down to several users behind one IP address, but seeing as IPv4 is on its last legs, that falls apart when any ISP is hiding its users behind a pool of IPs!

Not just that but if someone is using iplayer via a mobile device.

Without knowing the reasoning behind it I can only surmise it would just be an added hassle for legitimate users whilst doing little to dissuade the less legitimate ones.

Narj · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:13

Caged said:
I'm not really sure Whittingdale should be continuing with his role before it's been established how many of his strings were being pulled by organisations with a vested interest in seeing the demise of the BBC.

Regardless of whether he's a knobber or not, it's been obvious that the BBC are way behind the curve when it comes to digital content delivery. Finding a new series then seeing that you can't watch the first episode because it expired = RAGE!

Mynight said:
Not just that but if someone is using iplayer via a mobile device.

Without knowing the reasoning behind it I can only surmise it would just be an added hassle for legitimate users whilst doing little to dissuade the less legitimate ones.

Good point, too. Maximum streams per account a la Netflix I suppose. Perhaps correlating with geolocation of current streams to ensure they are in the same country.

Werewolf · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:16

Mynight said:
The bit Ill find interesting is if they tie it to an account how many accounts can use it. Ie max of four devices to prevent sharing.

Wonder how they'll work with families with more members or devices. An extra charge?

I doubt it will happen.

The cost of implementing it in any workable form would be very high compared to any return that could reasonably be expected (IE people buying licences to get access), open to abuse with account sharing, and from my understanding would require the legislation under which the BBC works to be changed quite substantially for them to charge a fee for it.

Mind you Whittingdale is already trying to get the TVL to be shared with commercial broadcasters, and complaining that the BBC puts popular progamming on at the same time as other broadcasters have popular programming on, and not that long ago had a go at the BBC because they put the news on in ITV's slot, seemingly forgetting that the BBC moved the news to 10pm months after ITV decided to drop their 10pm news so they could play "news at when" with it (I think ITV moved back to 10pm about 6-12 months later when they realised people weren't watching the news when it was on in a variable slot).

Mynight · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:18

Wonder what subscription pricing they'll look at. Hardly like they can charge full tv license fees nor could they charge as much as Netflix for such limited(in relation)content. Add in the cost to police this I think they're going to be losing out rather than gaining.

Nah I don't see it happening really. Well I can see many millions being spent looking into it to only declare failure

.

(I need to land myself a government software contract)

Edit: Werewolf put it better than myself

jon86 · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:18

Mynight said:
Not just that but if someone is using iplayer via a mobile device. ...

BBC could just implement a policy where you have a maximum number of devices that can stream at once, similar to how Netflix does it.

Mynight said:
...
Without knowing the reasoning behind it I can only surmise it would just be an added hassle for legitimate users whilst doing little to dissuade the less legitimate ones.

Indeed. Make it too hard to legitimately view licensed content and piracy will simply increase.

Mynight · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:23

jon86 said:
Indeed. Make it too hard to legitimately view licensed content and piracy will simply increase.

Completely. Despite paying for a TV license myself I find myself acquiring from elsewhere dr who when it was on just so I didn't have to deal with iplayer. It always seems to buffer for me despite any other site instantly playing/loading.

Caged · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:27

Narj said:
Regardless of whether he's a knobber or not, it's been obvious that the BBC are way behind the curve when it comes to digital content delivery. Finding a new series then seeing that you can't watch the first episode because it expired = RAGE!

That's what happens on a catch-up service though. If you wanted everything shown on the BBC to be available on iPlayer forever then they'd have to buy the distribution rights instead of just the rights to screen the content. If they then turn around and give it away for free that's not going to improve their financial position. As far as I know only Channel 4 have huge libraries of their shows available for free - and their player is quite horrendous in comparison.

I disagree with the BBC being behind the curve, at least in terms of the technology. They were one of the first to launch on-demand content on the web, have consistently pushed the platform forward (see HTML5 when competitors are stuck on Flash/Silverlight), and continue to support a huge number of devices and platforms.

Werewolf · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:37

Narj said:
Now that's tricky seeing as licencing is per household... You'd think they could lock down to several users behind one IP address, but seeing as IPv4 is on its last legs, that falls apart when any ISP is hiding its users behind a pool of IPs!

They have the rights to resell stuff to Netflix (there's a lot of BBC stuff on Netflix US that isn't on UK for example) but couldn't do the same in the UK? I hadn't thought of that angle but I'm surprised if they haven't locked down their rights in the UK. :/

I've got a mate that works for the beeb in production so I'll pester him for his thoughts!

The BBC doesn't sell rights to foreign broadcasters directly, it's done via BBC:WW who buy the rights off the BBC at a commercial rate (often bidding against other distributors, and BBC:WW also distribute ITV content that they've bought it).

The rights for subscription streaming will be very separate to the rights for TVL funded broadcast, and the Iplayer period (which was from memory included as part of the basic broadcast deal hence the limit time, but that took several years to phase in).

In some cases the rights to ongoing streaming for back catalogue content from the BBC may be locked up with a specific service who paid for exclusive rights for a while.

The TVL only ever funds initial broadcasts for a set period (of both time, and showings), and now a limited time on Iplayer.

The contracts to show it on additional non TVL services, or after the TVL iplayer period will be different and require additional payments to various parties.

It's the same reason you used to find some programmes weren't on Iplayer at all, and some programs on other channels might not have been on the +1, the contracts would have stated the channel number of times it could be shown.

Basically the BBC pays for content to broadcast under very specific conditions.
It doesn't pay for the rights in perpetuity or for every possible use, which is pretty much the same as every broadcaster (and that has led to some fun contract renegotiation from what I've heard - including cases of arguments about the definition of "home video" when DVD came out, and then for HD).

Werewolf · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:45

Caged said:
That's what happens on a catch-up service though. If you wanted everything shown on the BBC to be available on iPlayer forever then they'd have to buy the distribution rights instead of just the rights to screen the content. If they then turn around and give it away for free that's not going to improve their financial position. As far as I know only Channel 4 have huge libraries of their shows available for free - and their player is quite horrendous in comparison.

I disagree with the BBC being behind the curve, at least in terms of the technology. They were one of the first to launch on-demand content on the web, have consistently pushed the platform forward (see HTML5 when competitors are stuck on Flash/Silverlight), and continue to support a huge number of devices and platforms.

You've just made the point I was trying to make, but far better

And aye, the BBC have typically been well ahead of the curve in technology adoption, but limited in how they've introduced some of it due to the legal and financial frameworks they operate under.
For example from memory they were testing HD broadcasts back in about 2000 or 2002 via a dongle you connected to the PC near their test transmitter*, but they couldn't start broadcasting in HD until there was a terrestrial standard approved, and enough people had it to make it financially reasonable within their budget (unlike Sky who could use it to sell you an additional service at another tenner a month).
And they're constantly working on various improvements in the technology they use behind the scenes, often to the benefit of other broadcasters and in ways that unless you're interested in the technology or work in the industry you probably won't hear about (I think it was the BBC who had one of the first digital video recorders, developed Nicam and Ceefax, and are still working on new improvements for the processing of audio so you get a better result with standard reception equipment).

*I think that test helped define the EU standards for DVBT:HD

Caged · 29 Apr 2016 at 00:47

See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/09/how_to_build_a_dvbt2_modulator.html

Edit: And nothing to do with TV but still cool http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2016-01-35-million-people-didnt-notice-a-thing-dot-dot-dot

Stealthploit · 29 Apr 2016 at 01:14

Dont you have a transaction id ?