Marc_ely

iPlayer from September looks to get trickier for expats.

Official TV Licensing website - BBC iPlayer and the TV Licence

I guess if you have a UK friend or relative that is willing to share their license fee with you, and the DNS trick still works...

Sheepdip

Won't it just be one of those 'yes I have a licence' screens that you check to get access? Why would someone need to 'share their licence fee with you'? And that would also be illegal anyway wouldn't it, so no real difference really (seeing as you already have to defeat their geolocation barrier)?

Marc_ely

On one of the tech sites they implied you would have to enter your license number into the program itself. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

jambey2510

I thought BBC iPlayer was free, license or no license, as it wasn't live TV? Or did that change?

Marc_ely

Changing in September.
" From 1 September 2016 you will need to be covered by a TV Licence to download or watch BBC programmes on demand, including catch up TV, on BBC iPlayer. This applies to any device and provider you use. "

Guindalf

The BBC has always changed the rules if its revenue stream has been challenged.

I remember when, if you were able to prove that you didn't watch the BBC (only ITV, Ch 4 and/or Sky at the time), you didn't need to buy a license, so they changed it to include ALL channels.

I'm betting dollars to donuts that a LOT of people in the UK have been watching on-demand to avoid the licence fee, so it gets changed once again!

Nutek

Seems to be a legal change rather than a tech one, from what is written.

If it's a legality tighten-up, then it makes no difference as you are already "stealing it".

If it's a technology change, then it will be a few weeks until it is cracked by someone or other.

zymurgy

I think it's both - I hope you're right.

robin1234

So will people who don't live in the UK be able to pay a licence fee? Or could the BBC set up a "friends of the BBC" organisation in the U.S. and other countries? The National Trust have the Royal Oak Foundation in the U.S.

Nutek

No chance. BBC have tie ups with other companies (TLC for one) to sell certain shows / titles and, unless that ceases, there is no way they will open their catalog to anyone else.

Nutek

Well, I haven't looked far, but so far all I have seen is wording aimed at UK residents telling them that their period of using iPlayer instead of owning a license is over and they must now pay up. No mention of new tech (so far) and no mention of overseas users other that the TOS for "real" customers. We may get caught in the fallout, but it's not aimed at us.

The real threat for us and iPlayer right now is Netflix, whose geo-blocking is what is causing all the current issues with the DNS services.

celticgrid

So I'm guessing this will affect those of us who are using Roku apps to watch the main UK channels?

Not UKTV or whatever, but the main BBC/ITV/C4/5 etc Roku apps.

Thinking about it, the affect will be on HOW they implement the enforcement. If it requires a TV licence number entering, that would create problems. Anything else should not affect current setup.

rpjs

From what I've read they won't be enforcing this by technological means (i.e. enter your licence number) from 1st Sept, but they are working on adding such checks at a later date. All the other UK players such as ITV Player and All 4, and BBC radio and weirdly, S4C Welsh programmes on the iPlayer, will not be affected.

carlrush

Exactly right. Everything is watched on laptops or streamed to TV and I don't know anyone under 30 with a TV license.

Marc_ely

Quite funny...
BBC to deploy detection vans to snoop on internet users

I think they're harking back to the good ole days of detector vans... that didn't detect anything either.