Stupid attempt at region locking - Dr. Who releated

[farley2k]

I was reading up about the new season of Dr. Who this morning, and was really excited to read that I could watch the who first episode at the BBC website!  However when I went there I was told that only IPs in the UK could watch.  Dumb asses.  The fist thing I did was head to a torrent search site - and whola!  I found it.  Now BBC gets less hits on their web page.  Great job. 

And even if I wasn't happy to torrent it I could easily use a proxy server in the UK to watch the episode. 

Do they not understand how the Internet works?  It is like there is a fundamental flaw in how they understand the web.

(oh and it is 38.6% done now!  I think it is actually faster this way than their web site.)

[Windows95]

I understand why you’re upset, but I don’t think you can really blame the BBC.

Keep in mind everyone in the UK pays a tax or licence fee for television programming, so BBC programs are advertisement free.  Since streaming broadband content still isn’t that cheap, especially with no ad revenue, the BBC limits their content to the people who have paid for the programming.  This helps keep cost down for the BBC and probably also improves quality of service for UK users.

So then how come the BBC doesn’t create a streaming version with ads for overseas customers?  Well let’s say a US network wants to pick up the latest season of Doctor Who.  Do you think they’d be willing to pay as much for a show that’s available online?  Probably not since they know their ad revenue won’t be as great since there's a decreased number of viewers.  Broadcast regulations can also play a part.  I live in Canada and can’t watch most streaming shows from US providers since a Canadian broadcaster also carries the show.  In this case the US providers aren’t blocking me for financial reasons (they’d like me to watch the show for the ad revenue I’d give them) but they’re prohibited from doing so thanks to archaic broadcast laws.

So in summary, I agree with you fully that it sucks, but I don’t think it’s because the BBC are trying to be idiots.

[Larraque]

It's not just the BBC. Head outside the US and try to access content on most of the major network's websites (HBO, Showtime, NBC, Sci-Fi) and see how many you can actually download web-isodes from. I bet that number will be somewhere close to zero.

They upload these to attract new viewers - if you live outside the country and therefore cannot actually watch the network, why pay for the bandwidth required to allow you to download something that they won't make any revenue or gain any viewers from??

[Rumpy]

Exactly, W95. I think the technique's called Geolocation. Part of it anyway. Either that or they block whole IP ranges that belong to certain countries.

A lot of the time however, giving BSG as an example, they'll release webisodes or special features, which aren't available outside the US. This, I understand, but at least give the opportunity for those that can't view the content that way to view it from the Space Channel website. Not only do people get locked out, but alternate ways of viewing aren't given, which is what pisses me off the most. If you're gonna lock people out, then make the other things available to the right holders for that country. Is that so hard?