BBC iPlayer ‘loophole’ to be closed soon, says culture secretary

How exactly are they going to achieve this. They can’t fine everyone who has a computer that is capable of internet access, what with wifi every-which-place and mobile phones, everyone and the dead chicken would be forking out for something they most likely do not use (BBC vs Free stuff on the net)

If they make the ISP cough up, the Beeb would burn down the same night, but knowing that it is the BBC and the government doing things i could see that happening.

It would make sense to have a login service where you use your licence ID and email details (which would make sense), but this would make to much sense 🙁

Surprised it’s taken this long TBH, I would guess they’ll tie a licence ID to you and have a mandatory log-in to watch or something.

There’s not much I’d chose to see anyway. I’m not going to pay the same as an all-day watcher for an hour or two a month.

I’m amused that they send me threatening letters because I don’t own a TV. ‘An officer will visit your property soon’. This is your license money they are wasting here.

I’m with slow dog. I would not mind paying a bit but being as I don’t have a TV and watch iPlayer couple of times a month I would not want to pay full TV licence cost.

They don’t have to make it a logon system, just as you don’t have to logon to your television. They can just change the law that you require a license to watch it.

That could be an “honesty” system, or maybe they will charge the same license to anyone with a computer and an internet connection as they do in some other countries.

Is this the same guy who was on about stopping ad blocking?

Edit… apparently so 🙄

I’m amused that they send me threatening letters because I don’t own a TV. ‘An officer will visit your property soon’. This is your license money they are wasting here.

I didn’t answer for a very long time (5 years ?) they sent numerous people round, we where always out. Lots of threatening letters. Eventually we where in once and a very excited inspector came in to find no Television 🙂

This new move will raise virtually nothing, how many more licences are they going to sell ? If they block iPlayer people just won’t watch. The licence fee is a waste of time, the BBC should just be funded from central government or allow adverising or a bit of both.

it’s not a problem really, I just download al load of stuff before I go anywhere and watch it offline. More than enough content unless you’re in for hours at an end.

Whatever they come up with ,there will be a way round it , just a matter of time

Eventually we where in once and a very excited inspector came in to find no Television

You let him in ? 😀

Whatever they come up with ,there will be a way round it , just a matter of time

if it’s linked to a TV licence then just borrow a mates licence number.

Eventually we where in once and a very excited inspector came in to find no Television
You let him in ?

I was hoping they would come round to my flat when I didn’t have a TV or licence. 😈

BBC programmes are terrible.

Been using Sky for years.

Don’t see the point in compulsory licence fees.

Love BBC stuff – easily the world’s envy for a public broadcaster. Glad the loophole is being closed: I know loads of friends who merrily use iPlayer but don’t pay the fee.

They aren’t going to start now! Well done to the Beeb for criminalising something though. Bravo.

Well done to them for criminalising something though. Bravo.

Isn’t this the opposite of that?

I don’t have a TV, i get my TV shows and films from other internet sources. The only show i watched from BBC was Doctor who. The internet has a whole truck load of sites and ways to watch TV and Films. I can’t see the BBC clawing any cash from none TV owners due to closing this loophole, unless they pick on the ‘not-so-bright’ people.

BBC is overated, maybe back in the day when they actually spent cash on shows, but now it’s full of ‘Strictly cook my boyfriend’ and other dross. BBC Radio 4E is the only good thing about the beeb.

They better not put the bill on the ISP, which i am sure they did mention a while back.

I must admit I find it a little strange that you need a licence to watch a TV programme ‘live’ over the internet but not to watch it later…. I’ve not had an operational TV since before that major digital retune about 5-6 years ago. I do watch the odd thing on iplayer (always after the event as broadband speed isn’t good enough to stream). But it’s wildly variable. Can go a week or two without watching a thing then 3 hours in one night… But usually average out an hour 2 or 3 times a week.

I can’t be arsed with C4 OD due to the adverts. If they make you log in then I’ll ditch iplayer too (unless they have a ‘lite’ version). Unless I can download and keep for good, then I might think about it. There’s always YouTube…. And DVD box sets.

There are some people up here really not happy with the bbc after how their impartiality was shown up during the last referendum. I think it would be sad to see it go, but it’s not vital for me. I’d miss radio much more though.

The BBC is only good for David Attenborough documentaries.. The content on iplayer is nothing to shout about apart from that, and let’s face it, he’s getting on a bit.

So what happens if someone puts last nights programme on YouTube?

daveatextremistsdotcouk – Member
So what happens if someone puts last nights programme on YouTube?

They’ll get removed pretty quickly.

I’ve not yet tried 4OD on there (not much I want to watch on C4), but I was rather pleased to find that the ITV Player app on Kodi (standard open source media player platform used as part of media player installations on RPi and other similar things) doesn’t show any ads. It’s the one thing which puts me off just streaming everything – the alternative being recording where you can skip the ads. Which is a big advantage of the move to streaming for the ad supported channels, as I presume most other platforms will just show ads in the way ITV player on my laptop does.

Aracer, I wanted to watch Les Revenants season 2. But got pissed off after I watched the Guy Martin in India thing.

So I just waited until the boxset came out instead.

I don’t even bother looking at the schedule for C4, never bother ever with itv anything. Last thing was probably the last Armstrong TdF (2005?)!

Ben_H – Member
Love BBC stuff – easily the world’s envy for a public broadcaster. Glad the loophole is being closed: I know loads of friends who merrily use iPlayer but don’t pay the fee.

Completely agree BBC puts out some great TV, BBC(4) documentaries are still the best around, so much more than just Attenborough !

About time the loophole was fixed, too many people expect to get stuff that the other pay for

The adverts on 4OD are a nightmare!

Completely agree BBC puts out some great TV

When they bother, I agree. At their best, BBC TV is excellent. Sadly, the good stuff is all too rare and reality TV makes me resent the license fee a bit. I bloody hate it.

And I’m coming to the viewpoint that it’s wrong to force people to pay in order to watch government propaganda.

Propaganda is the wrong word here, but I can’t think of another that is more subtle.

I’m currently mostly watching BBC3 stuff on iPlayer, now I’ve got my RPi sorted to play that on the TV.

Update: 4OD doesn’t seem to be working on Kodi

I don’t understand what this loophole is, or even why they’re calling it a loophole? These are the laws they created. And would the changes mean we’d need a licence to watch Youtube? Or your mate live streaming his Saturday night culinary expertise on Facebook?

The whole model for TV licencing just doesn’t really work in the modern age. Personally I’d be happy for my income tax to go into the BBC, so long as they don’t use it to produce some shite with Bruce Forsyth in it.

That’s a dangerous game though.. I’d like my income tax to pay for train services or x y Z so it should be free for all users. Apart from those that don’t use them and are forced to pay for them regardless. Not really a fair model.

But, AFAIK, its a TV license…not a BBC license?

I don’t watch BBC stuff on iPlayer … very seldom anyway.

I watch freeview and I don’t record stuff … if they are gone, then be gone or to be gone. 😆

That’s a dangerous game though.. I’d like my income tax to pay for train services or x y Z so it should be free for all users. Apart from those that don’t use them and are forced to pay for them regardless. Not really a fair model.

I don’t know. A good train service would be beneficial to the economy and society in general. I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been on a train in the past decade, but I’d be happy paying towards them, for a public service. Just like I’m forced to pay towards the road networks. It’s part of the country’s infrastructure. Providing them free might be pushing it a bit, mind.

But, AFAIK, its a TV license…not a BBC license?

Exactly. It’s not really making sense to me.

Probably will be saying goodbye to get_iplayer then.
I don’t bother with 4od ever. On Linux, need to install legacy s/w I’d otherwise not be using, register and sign in just so they can shove adverts down my throat? Would rather (and do) not bother.

Seems like prime territory for bungled legislation. The current TV licence legislation covers a property, not an individual person. How do they cover someone watching a programme at work, in a cafe – would the cafe need a licence similar to PRS to provide wifi to customers?

How do they cover someone watching a programme at work, in a cafe – would the cafe need a licence similar to PRS to provide wifi to customers?

Probably something like a 5x simultaneous use license key (your TV License) you log in on your device and then it streams, hit the max number of connections and somebody gets bounced. It’s how most services like that work.

It’s not up to the cafe to provide a license, if I want to log into STW from a cafe and I’m a P member I don’t expect them to provide that.

I think restricting the access to the service to those that pay for it is a great idea.

slowoldgit – Member
And I’m coming to the viewpoint that it’s wrong to force people to pay in order to watch government propaganda.

Nobody is forcing you to pay, nobody is forcing you to watch. If you think it’s propaganda, take a look at a few other TV stations and see what it really looks like.

97% of homes in the UK have a television, and people (aged 4+) watch an average of 3 hrs 40 minutes a day. Sauce

I agree those numbers are horrifying, but unfortunately, it does show very clearly that collective opinion of STW is enormously irrelevant in this debate. But lets not let that stop us!

Closing this loophole stops people from claiming that they only use the catch-up services, instead of watching live – so avoiding the licence fee. About time.

I do agree though, it would be much easier to have an iPlayer login linked to your TV licence.

from a non-licence-fee payer, BTW 😀

I do agree though, it would be much easier to have an iPlayer login linked to your TV licence.

Easier than just changing the law? No chance. Building the infrastructure arround that will take a lot more time and effort than amending the law. I doubt it will bring in much more money, but you never know. As a student we didn’t have a TV but watched iPlayer on catch up, we probably would of bought a license otherwise though.

Easier than just changing the law?

No….. but probably easier than changing the law AND enforcing it.

Netflix seem to do pretty well in making sure the people who are watching it are paying. I’m sure it’s possible to get Netflix for free – but it’s about making it sufficiently difficult so that all but the most tight-fisted, IT nerds (ahem…) would actually do it.

My extensive research* has lead me to the conclusion that most mountain bikers do not own a TV capable of receiving a live signal. Due to this fact they vehemently object to paying for another service which they admittedly use, iPlayer. My research also tells me that these same people mostly object to paying for parking at well known trails funded by the FC but they are fairly happy to blow £95 on a pair of work trousers.

*source STW.

Funny old world isn’t it? 😉

No….. but probably easier than changing the law AND enforcing it.

Netflix seem to do pretty well in making sure the people who are watching it are paying. I’m sure it’s possible to get Netflix for free – but it’s about making it sufficiently difficult so that all but the most tight-fisted, IT nerds (ahem…) would actually do it.

They won’t enforce it any more than they enforce the current laws. Unless they hire more staff to try and enforce the new laws.

Netflix was engineered from the ground up to have user authentication. Iplayer wasnt. It’ll require a lot of work to do that, and as it’s the BBC/government project it’ll involve a lot of expensive IT consultants.

They won’t enforce it any more than they enforce the current laws. Unless they hire more staff to try and enforce the new laws.

Enforcement is simple, put it behind a paywall.
News Limited seemed to manage to do that quite well.