http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/ ... ng-1155488

Presumably the Beeb's already got licensing deals anyway

Since when have BBC bosses made any good decisions?

Are they available on iPlayer in the meantime? If the BBC is showing them for "free" on iPlayer, why would you pay to watch the content on Netflix?

Also doesn't the BBC show much of it again on CBBC and CBeebies? These groups could almost be shown Muffin the Mule on repeat and still get an audience, as there will be another new group along in a few years anyway.

Netflix complaining that they have to buy american crap children's TV programmes instead of the BBC giving them access to their back catalogue so they can make money off it instead of the BBC showing it for free

Exactly keep it on the BBC.

Though, at some point the BBC will want to make money from their older content. It's very likely that contracts with presenters, voices and other talent makes it hard for them to offer it to third party streaming services.

I'd rather see them implement a way for us to view archive content via iPlayer, though I expect that plans for this will be hobbled due to being seen as "unfair" to the private sector.

What do you mean exactly? You can already "archive" content to hard disk, it's just that the DRM makes it self destruct usually after 30 days. That's not going to change for anything which contains 3rd party licensed material, such as music. Remember, UK law states that you have to erase any recordings you make from broadcast television after 30 days unless explicitly authorised, and that's been true since VHS video recorders. Keeping material longer than that is not "fair usage". If you want to keep it indefinitely, you have to buy it.

For that reason, I haven't bothered with the iPlayer app for a long time. I just stream it on the website when I want it.

I mean older stuff. Stuff that's not had an airing for a good few years or decades.

Ahh, I see.

The chances are, if it's been digitised already then it's available for purchase on BBC DVD or BD. I doubt Auntie will start a premium download service any time soon, and it would cost a lot of the licence payer's money to digitise a huge catalogue of material that they didn't intend to charge for. Of course it would be lovely to have free access to all that material, but someone has to pay for the work.

Wipe VHS tapes after thirty days?
You'd better tell my dad, he's still got about a hundred with things recorded off the TV in the 1980's.

I think anyone with any VHS tapes are in an identical position. With iPlayer the BBC can simply make the download unreadable after the due date.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.

Lots of people did it because there was no chance of getting caught, and many people think it's legal anyway. It should be obvious that it's no more legal than taping songs off the radio.

I had a stack of them too, but I gave them to my parents. Sadly, they couldn't play them because their brand new deck couldn't handle the long play and hi-fi stereo sound.

Really. If you can legally buy VHS recorder and legally buy VHS tapes, then most people will naturally assume it's legal to use them. Why sould it be obvious that there's a thirty day time limit? It's not obvious that such a limit exists at all.

There are a number of apps that will allow you to download programmes from iPlayer without any DRM restrictions. Given we're all required to pay the licence fee, I personally have no moral problems with that, provided they aren't distributed outside the UK.