back to article BBC shuts off iPlayer to UK VPNs, cutting access to overseas fans

The BBC is trying to block access to iPlayer from UK VPNs, crushing the spirits of those overseas hoping to get a fix of Doctor Who and other British telly. Auntie said it instituted the blockade to deter pirates from ripping off its dramas, comedies, documentaries and other programs, which are funded by TV license-fee payers …

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  1. Christoph

    "doctor who torrent"

    About 8,070 results (0.39 seconds)

    1. NoneSuch Silver badge

      No issues here.

      My VPN tunnels into my company branch in a city I won't name. From there, it's a local UK IP and all the tele I want to watch.

      Since Clarkson and the lads left Top Gear there isn't much left worth watching. Sherlock is on Netflix.

      1. alpine

        Re: No issues here.

        And of course less TV will improve your mental condition since hopefully, you will be less of a couch potato. I say this as a generality, not aimed at you specifically. The UK has suffered for too long by having the least bad national TV services. We need to get people to diversify their interests away from watching TV which is unhealthy for both mind and body.

    2. BBCme

      Use a SmartDNS instead of a VPN

      The one technology that the BBC won't be able to shut off is a SmartDNS connection, aka DNS tunneling. And it actually streams faster than through a VPN connection. So hope this helps all those stranded out there!

      p.s. Here's the SmartDNS provider I'm using: http://www.vpnworld.org/overplay

  2. Dr_N

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

    ooooooooooooooooo !!!

    1. Danny 14

      Re: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

      rent a small UK VPS and proxy through it.

  3. imanidiot Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

    Once again the BBC is shooting itself in the foot instead of coming up with a better solution that having to VPN into britain to get your fix. MAKE THINGS CONVENIENT if you want to stop pirates...

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

      Pay $100/year to the BBC to be able to watch TV from over here - not allowed

      $few/episode to the BBC to watch Sherlock/Qi/Dr Who - not allowed

      Pay $50/month for BBC America on top of $100/month premium cable, to watch episodes a month later with commercials - allowed

      Or Torrent for free ?

      1. DavCrav

        Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

        "Pay $100/year to the BBC to be able to watch TV from over here - not allowed

        $few/episode to the BBC to watch Sherlock/Qi/Dr Who - not allowed"

        For the last time, the BBC has a special carte-blanche law to use whatever copyrighted material (e.g., music) it wants, but this only applies in the UK. It would be illegal for them to sell it outside of the UK.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

          You can watch Doctor Who on BBC America. You can buy Doctor Who shows on Amazon in the USA, sold by BBC America. So your contention that it would somehow be "illegal" for the BBC to sell their shows overseas appears to be bollocks. They presumably have to pay whatever license fees are required to rightsholders in the USA for any music used etc, but for the shows that have a big audience in the USA like Doctor Who, that will have been factored in, since it's an important revenue stream for the BBC. For shows they never intended to export, that might be an issue.

          1. asdf

            Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

            Hulu Plus and even Netflix has some BBC as well don't they?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

              Last time I checked Hulu (probably 9-12 months ago), they had Dr. Who episodes available on a "Best of BBC" channel. Not sure if the assortment was comprehensive or if the service is being discontinued so the BBC can sell its own streaming U.S. channel for more $$$.

              (And yes, BBC America is seemingly 50% Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is of course not BBC programming. New content?--"Make it so!".)

            2. KeyLargo

              Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

              Hulu is going to pay only soon, Hulu Plus with or without commercials which is extra and is not longer showing any doctor who; Netflix is the same. BBC America shows them, sooner or later, but as of this writing the supposed BBC plan to set up and charge for non Brit access has not come to anything, only that Amazon/Prime now has the rights that used to used by the other pay services. BTW it is now end of August 2016. I personally have access to the first 2 and just recently a friend let me check out his amazon prime, but most americans that are interested in brit programming would gladly pay a monthly and/or yearly subscription price to get such channels as Dave TV and the rest, including more immediate access to Doctor Who, Sherlock, etcetera.

          2. Gene Cash Silver badge

            Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

            > You can watch Doctor Who on BBC America

            You can watch a chopped up mutilated version of Doctor Who on BBC America, with content removed to make room for commercials.

            They did the same thing to Top Gear, removing entire sub-stories, until people threw an absolute shit-fit and they then made episodes of Top Gear run uncut for an hour and 20 minutes, to make room for the 20 minutes of commercials.

            For example, there was a bit in Top Gear where they made a F1 engine rev to play "God Save the Queen" and that was cut from the BBC America version.

            1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

              Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

              " F1 engine rev to play "God Save the Queen" and that was cut from the BBC America version"

              You were lucky! that bit was painfull

          3. goldcd

            Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

            OP was sort of right.

            My understanding is a while back BBC shows just played whatever music they felt like and didn't care about the licensing - "they were covered".

            Then when they realized they could sell stuff abroad, they had to then buy a proper license for the music they'd used. If that couldn't be secured, then music had to be replaced/removed.

            The licenses are usually for x years in y territory. So, you can still have problems if say 1 the 10 tracks you used expires after 5 rather than 10 years in the US, the whole program could only be sold in the US for 5 years, despite 9/10ths being fine for another 5.

            Many people make their living from messing around with this stuff.

            1. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

              Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

              ...Many people make their living from messing around with this stuff....

              ...and consequently it's not going to change any time soon.

              And in those few words lies the secret to why much of human endeavour happens as it does. Wars, for example, happen because a very large number of well-paid and connected people make a very good living from them...

          4. Bernard M. Orwell

            Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

            Why do you even want to watch Dr Who in the US, when you have The Last Kingdom to watch on BBC America nearly a month ahead of the UK?

          5. rtb61

            Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

            You can also move to Australia and watch it for free on the ABC. I wander if ABC, CBC and BBC will come up with some sort of iview treaty much like their public health care treaty.

        2. DavCrav

          Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

          "For the last time, the BBC has a special carte-blanche law to use whatever copyrighted material (e.g., music) it wants, but this only applies in the UK. It would be illegal for them to sell it outside of the UK."

          OK, considering three-quarters of the votes for this were downvotes, I guess we apparently need a lesson in the legal quagmire that is an international subscription to the BBC. I am not talking about the BBC selling its content abroad on an ad hoc basis, although I will mention this in point 3 below, I am talking about allowing foreigners access to the BBC iPlayer and BBC TV broadcasts.

          This is impossible for the following reasons:

          1) International events, such as sport, won't let them. The World Cup, Eurovision Song Contest, etc., have rights sold on a national basis.You won't be allowed to access BBC One when Wimbledon is on and you are outside the UK.

          2) More generally, many BBC shows are made by outside companies and sold to the BBC. This doesn't apply to shows like Top Gear and Doctor Who (they will come later) but the bread and butter shows are sold on a national licence basis, again. Similarly if BBC One shows a movie; it won't have the right to do that internationally.

          3) Finally, we have shows like Top Gear (RIP) and Doctor Who, which are made directly like the BBC. Firstly these are exclusively licensed in many territories, and the recipients might not appreciate the BBC muscling in, but more importantly we run into what I originally mentioned, which are two central tenets of the BBC: it has to do its best, and it can do whatever it likes. The BBC has a compulsory, permanent, non-exclusive right to use any music in its broadcast, and the artists cannot stop them. This law only applies to the BBC, not commercial broadcasters, and only in the UK. So if you want to sell Top Gear abroad, you now have to start negotiating licences. But you cannot do the obvious thing of pre-arrange the licences and use that music because of the BBC Charter, which requires the BBC to produce the best programmes it can using the resources available. So the music arrangers use the very best, and then the lawyers try to licence it afterwards for commercial release. This is time consuming and expensive, and dependent on the territory again, and so is only something you do for multi-million-pound shows that bring in lots of revenue.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

            I imagine you were downvoted at least in part for your insistence on this mythical "special law" that gives the BBC "carte blanche" to use whatever music they like, and artists have no say. There is no such law. The BBC has a blanket licensing agreement with MCPS/PRS, which they pay £50 million/year for. ITV have a similar blanket license, and similar terms are available to other broacasters and the people who produce content for them. Artists can and have opted out of the MCPS/PRS scheme, in which case the BBC cannot use their music without separate licensing arrangements.

          3. JimBob01

            Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

            "This is impossible for the following reasons:…”

            So how is it possible that I have BBC1-4, 1 & 2 HD and Entertainment as part of my cable package …in the Netherlands? And yes, I was able to watch all the BBC generated coverage of Wimbledon that I desired.

            It would seem that there appears to be a fairly simple solution to all this geographical licensing mumbo jumbo after all.

        3. Gritzwally Philbin

          Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

          And they cannot re-edit a soundtrack (like was done with Life on Mars) for a global release?

          Lazy, very lazy that and for sure it will only encourage torrents.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

        Move to the UK and pay £150. And all the ITV you can stomach for free.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

          >Move to the UK and pay £150. And all the ITV you can stomach

          And lovely UK food and weather comes as an added bonus that you also will have to stomach.

          1. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

            And lovely UK food and weather comes as an added bonus that you also will have to stomach.

            Well quite, on the face of it with our towns saturated with American fast food outlets and chav chicken shops we would appear to have reached our deepest nadir. However, in the UK thinkers can have food as good as anywhere in the world without any problem.

            We can do nothing about the weather here except enjoy it for what it is.

          2. Bernard M. Orwell

            Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

            Is that an American critiquing British food?

            You don't want to go there..... :D

            1. Gritzwally Philbin
              Joke

              Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

              Oh, probably.. After all, even here in the States we know that British food is so nasty y'all went to India for take-out!

              D-oh!.

            2. IsJustabloke
              Trollface

              Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

              "You don't want to go there"

              Its ok, they don't get irony either.

            3. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

              >Is that an American critiquing British food?

              I will take New Orleans food (we are so much more than McDonald's even if often stolen from other countries) over fried blood pudding any day of the week. I will admit UK food is much better today than a generation ago due to the locals realizing their nasty food was never going to be appreciated by the tourists and that overseas chefs had to be imported.

              1. x 7

                Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

                "New Orleans food"

                I thought the highlight of New Orleans food was deep-fried pigs anus?

        2. MJI Silver badge

          Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

          ITV

          Don't be too harsh, they have TWO programmes I actually like watching

          Food

          I LIKE British food, a nice roast, a tasty Cornish Pasty

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still available on Hola

    No problems getting access via the 'free-ish' service Hola from outside of the UK -> iPlayer.

    Agree with previous commentator - BBC should have a subscription service for those who wish to watch the content.. There must be a fair few Dr Who fans etc world wide..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Still available on Hola

      And also people who live in Europe AND pay the BBC tax (like me), they are being really stupid, as usual

      1. David Webb

        Re: Still available on Hola

        If you're paying the fee, you have a home in the UK, so get a router with built in VPN (Asus make a nice one) and you're good to go, you also save yourself the cost of paying a VPN provider. If you have a home in the UK but no internet, buy a friend the router and use their internet connection.

        Sure, that isn't an option for everyone but the BBC should have a duty of care to attempt to prevent their shows being watched in other countries over iPlayer, easiest way is to block VPN providers, leaving private VPN's alone so I could still watch any BBC (or ITV or any geolocked show) no matter which country I was in.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Alert

      Re: Still available on Hola

      Hola's a P2P VPN, you give up your bandwidth to other people and presumably you also give the OK to whatever it is they're accessing from your IP address.

    3. d3vy

      Re: Still available on Hola

      Don't trust hola

      I had the client run to watch us Netflix noticed a spike in junk mail being sent to me and FROM my mail server whenever I was using hola. Stopped using it and the spam stopped. I'm certain the two are connected.

      1. The Vociferous Time Waster

        Re: Still available on Hola

        If you think you are clever enough to run a mail server it should be trivial to trace. Otherwise stop running a badly configured spam spaffing vanity server.

        1. d3vy

          Re: Still available on Hola

          "If you think you are clever enough to run a mail server it should be trivial to trace. Otherwise stop running a badly configured spam spaffing vanity server."

          This is true, luckily I am - which is why I am able to say categorically that the surge in traffic that happened when I was connected to HOLA was 100% a result of being connected to their service.

          What you are saying is essentially that I should forget the issue that was caused because I can easily check the logs to see where it came from? What a monumental bell end.

        2. d3vy

          Re: Still available on Hola

          Actually, could you clarify.. you dont think that HOLA sending junk mail via my connection is an issue.. just because I can trace it?

  5. frank ly

    I see their logic

    "Auntie Beeb said it had instituted the blockade to deter pirates from ripping off its dramas, comedies, documentaries and other programs, which are funded by TV license-fee payers in Blighty."

    Because nobody in the UK records broadcast programs and makes them available on torrents.

  6. graeme leggett Silver badge

    see what you mean about schedule

    Had a look. Perhaps Mondays are unusual but its about 1/8 Gordon Ramsey gives you Nightmares, 1/4 Doctor Who 1/4 ST:TNG and the rest is Top Gear.

    Not that I was expecting Are You Being Served and Grange Hill....

  7. Pen-y-gors

    Flawed logic

    If the beeb were REALLY serious about stopping piracy, they'd kill iPlayer entirely. Okay, that would mean that licence payers in the UK couldn't watch stuff either, but hey, neither could the pirates, which is the most important thing.

    There are many reasons to use a VPN in the UK - e.g. when using a public WiFi connection. Why do the BBC want to insist that we switch off our VPNs and expose our computers to all sorts of hijacking and malware? Next stop ban use of AV software and firewalls?

    This is idiotic! I pay my licence fee, why can't I safely watch iPlayer?

    1. John Bailey

      Re: Flawed logic

      "If the beeb were REALLY serious about stopping piracy, they'd kill iPlayer entirely. Okay, that would mean that licence payers in the UK couldn't watch stuff either, but hey, neither could the pirates, which is the most important thing."

      And if they were really really serious, they'd stop making programming altogether. Can't pirate what isn't made.. eh?

      Who needs a nose anyway.

      "There are many reasons to use a VPN in the UK -"

      And watching last night's telly is not one of them.

      "Why do the BBC want to insist that we switch off our VPNs and expose our computers to all sorts of hijacking and malware?"

      Because they hate you. Everybody does.. You are a thoroughly repulsive person.

      "Next stop ban use of AV software and firewalls?"

      Yep.. cos.. well ranty bollox and general incoherent whining.

      "This is idiotic! I pay my licence fee, why can't I safely watch iPlayer?"

      Because we hate you.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Flawed logic

      Killing iPlayer is hardly going to stop piracy. It's far easier to just use a DVB tuner card and rip the unencrypted mpeg TS stream straight out of the air.

      I've got a carousel of everything broadcast on freeview for the last 7 days to pick and choose from, which will also include Family Guy and other shows which aren't available on iPlayer due to bits of paper. Plus no sitting about for an hour after a show has ended waiting for it to appear on iPlayer. I could understand a slight delay for a live show, but a pre-recorded? Err, No.

      I'll admit the user interface isn't the best, but everyone should learn basic grep operations :-)

  8. Michael B.

    Copyright Licensing

    I guess very few people here understand licensing of copyright licensing. If the BBC were seen to be offering copyrighted material, images, audio etc. to the entire world they would have to pay a big increase in the license fee to use that material. The best example I could find is in licensing visual Artists' works http://www.dacs.org.uk/licensing-works/price-lists/television-and-film The UK v Worldwide fees are such that the worldwide fees are around double the UK fees.

    In at least paying lip service to blocking viewing outside of the UK they are saving themselves fees in licensing copyrighted material and potentially residuals. ( Though how much the BBC actual spend on this is a mystery as the annual report does not breakdown costs that far.)

    1. veti Silver badge
      Flame

      Re: Copyright Licensing

      Rubbish. The BBC is quite big enough to negotiate its own rates for that kind of licensing, it doesn't have to take anyone's a la carte offering as the last word.

      The real answer is that the BBC makes a lot of money by selling its "content" to foreign broadcasters, and it has contracts with them that specify it has to forbid people from watching it directly. After all, why would I put up with Prime's crappy ads in Dr Who if I could just grab it on iPlayer instead?

      It's about protecting the cozy cartel of broadcasters, at the expense of the great unwashed. As usual.

      1. Just Enough

        Re: Copyright Licensing

        "It's about protecting the cozy cartel of broadcasters, at the expense of the great unwashed. As usual."

        The fact that the BBC sells its programmes to foreign broadcasters means generated income for the BBC. That means my licence fee is less than it would be if they were just giving it away. I'm just fine with that.

        If the country you are living in has crap television then that's your problem, not the BBC's. You have no right to access a broadcast service paid for by others.

    2. Probie

      Re: Copyright Licensing

      Yawn .... again the copyright wheel goes around ......

      It should be this though, if I am paying for a "digital" service (and I have paid for the license fee whilst flying around the world, my residence and domicile is the UK ) then I should have access to it. Arguably the license fee funds the IPlayer, therefore I should have access to it around the world.

      It does not seem rocket science, but what will happen is that the BBC becomes less relevant, ( god knows it is trying really hard to sprint down that slope already) and the likes of Amazon Instance Video and Netflix become the de facto replacement for the BBC.

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