Thursday, January 29, 2009
WTF, BBC?
I'm starting on the next installment of Secret Services, taking a quick break from the story I'm writing to let it percolate a bit, and I come across this bit of inanity.
Check out the official Torchwood pages on the BBC site. If, like me, you live outside the UK, you get the following: "If you are outside the UK you will not be able to use bbc.co.uk/torchwood for rights reasons."
I can understand not allowing non-UK residents to see streaming video and the like, but blocking access to the site itself? That's a little baffling.
At least the Doctor Who site appears to still be accessible.
Check out the official Torchwood pages on the BBC site. If, like me, you live outside the UK, you get the following: "If you are outside the UK you will not be able to use bbc.co.uk/torchwood for rights reasons."
I can understand not allowing non-UK residents to see streaming video and the like, but blocking access to the site itself? That's a little baffling.
At least the Doctor Who site appears to still be accessible.
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That seems a bit bogus to me. Why now? There was access before.
I got annoyed with the Doctor Who page in December though when I was unable to follow the Advent Calendar due to rights issues on certain things.
I got annoyed with the Doctor Who page in December though when I was unable to follow the Advent Calendar due to rights issues on certain things.
I wonder does it flow both ways, like say, can UK viewers stream Sci Fi Channel (or other US channel) content?
Largely, no we can't. No Galactica webisodes for us. In terms of the BBC, this is because of the licence fee. British citizens have, literally, and mostly to the point where it doesn't matter if they can check or not, already paid for the content on the site. Those overseas haven't. The BBC do let the world have the radio they do for free, but not the TV.
Just Google free open proxies to get around country-specific IP blocks like this, and then stop and think about China for a bit.
Paul, I would *happily* pay the BBC license fee in cash every year if it meant I could get access to the broadcast and online content. And I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one. We pay for the inclusion of "BBC America" in our satellite package, but it is a pretty sad and pale shadow of the actual thing.
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