[primaeval]

News from your Tory overlords: No more free iPlayer catchup and banning ad-blockers on the way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35708623

[stuCONNERS]

Its only legislation they cant do anything about even if they wanted to. Write to Capita removing their right of access. They return, Contact the Police its tresspassing Problem solved. And due to the laws in Britain the Police now cant be used to gain access to a property anymore over legislation. The only way they can do anything is if you allow them to come in. Have a search on youtube. Some of the videos are funny. Plus the police are to busy chasing people on twitter and facebook. Im currently under investigation from the Preston branch lol.

[DarrenHill]

I'd be interested to see how they implement it (especially to prevent licenses being shared or pirated), and also if they do somehow manage that miracle whether it will allow those of us with legitimate paid licenses to use iPlayer wherever we please rather than strictly within the UK (or appearing there-to-be via VPN or whatever).

[Dangelus]

I'm guessing it will have to be a "voluntary" system like we have now. If not we may have to sign into to iPlayer with our licence number or address details and the IP would be logged?

[stuCONNERS]

Even if they log IP address' and run them against Valid licences, They cant prove who pressed the button. Doubt they`ll take my 7 year old daughter to court.

[stammie]

I'd be interested to see how they implement it (especially to prevent licenses being shared or pirated), and also if they do somehow manage that miracle whether it will allow those of us with legitimate paid licenses to use iPlayer wherever we please rather than strictly within the UK (or appearing there-to-be via VPN or whatever).

I'd hazard a guess it will be login with your license fee number (and a password tied to it) and that the amount of devices you can use with that login will be limited to prevent the inevitable account sharing that will follow this move.

Although given the ridiculous snoopers charter they are trying to introduce I wouldn't be overly surprised if the new legislation also compelled ISP's to share with Capita any of their subscribers details who access Iplayer!

[Grand Total]

Although given the ridiculous snoopers charter they are trying to introduce I wouldn't be overly surprised if the new legislation also compelled ISP's to share with Capita any of their subscribers details who access Iplayer!

Why stop there? Why not compel the BBC to supply details of what subscribers watch?

[CaptainT]

I think your assumptions are a little premature.

The article just says they want to close the loophole. From my understanding, the loophole always referred to people inside the UK watching content on iPlayer without paying for a TV licence. This can be changed easily: Just declare every device which is connected to the Internet as a "next generation TV" and these people will need to get a TV licence.

The point of public broadcasting is, that everybody pays for it and everybody is able to watch it. If they would change iPlayer to registration/pay per use only, this would contradict the idea of public broadcasting. In other words: If you turn it into a subscription service, people must be given a choice to opt out. This might actually lead to declining revenue, which the Beeb surely wants to avoid.

Thus, my bet is on a "next generation TV license" which will simply include all devices that are capable of delivering content to the end user. That is PCs, tablets, mobile phones and so on.

[stammie]

I think your assumptions are a little premature.

The article just says they want to close the loophole. From my understanding, the loophole always referred to people inside the UK watching content on iPlayer without paying for a TV licence. This can be changed easily: Just declare every device which is connected to the Internet as a "next generation TV" and these people will need to get a TV licence.

The point of public broadcasting is, that everybody pays for it and everybody is able to watch it. If they would change iPlayer to registration/pay per use only, this would contradict the idea of public broadcasting. In other words: If you turn it into a subscription service, people must be given a choice to opt out. This might actually lead to declining revenue, which the Beeb surely wants to avoid.

Thus, my bet is on a "next generation TV license" which will simply include all devices that are capable of delivering content to the end user. That is PCs, tablets, mobile phones and so on.

If your bet is correct this would be a logistical nightmare quite possibly costing the BBC and Capita far more money than they could hope to recoup in extra fees, not to mention the retailers and service providers who would be compelled to forward the details of every sale they make.

For example I work for a medium sized company with around 150 employees, probably around 100 of us have company supplied mobile phones, these phones came out of The Ark and aren't even capable of receiving Iplayer, 70 or 80 of us have company supplied ipads which are locked down so tightly we can't even browse the internet on them.
In such a scenario the service providers would be compelled to register these devices (or their sim cards) as happens now when anyone buys a TV, receiver or service from a TV supplier, just checking our company's devices would cost a small fortune in man hours let alone doing it for millions of mobile devices.

The cynic in me thinks this move will be designed to make more money for the BBC and will restrict the amount of devices someone can use with one license and quite possibly limit the amount of IP's one account can connect from, which will lead to an "enhanced" license fee that will allow for more devices and more connections from various IP's, all the while the politicians will know that when the new royal charter is introduced many hard working families in the country will be forced to shell out even more of their hard earned money for all members of the family to access BBC content.

[Grand Total]

Thus, my bet is on a "next generation TV license" which will simply include all devices that are capable of delivering content to the end user. That is PCs, tablets, mobile phones and so on.

While it is reasonable to assume that a TV receiver will be used to receive TV broadcasts, it is not reasonable to assume that a mobile device or computer will be used to view iPlayer. Of course that may not be enough to stop the powers that be from making that assumption.

[Dangelus]

They would have to reform the whole license I think. For example at the moment you are exempt from the license if you are watching television from a portable device not connected to the mains.

[CaptainT]

If your bet is correct this would be a logistical nightmare quite possibly costing the BBC and Capita far more money than they could hope to recoup in extra fees, not to mention the retailers and service providers who would be compelled to forward the details of every sale they make.

Correct. That is: If they keep the current system. Just like Dangelus already mentioned, I also assume that they would reform the whole licence system.

For example I work for a medium sized company with around 150 employees, probably around 100 of us have company supplied mobile phones, these phones came out of The Ark and aren't even capable of receiving Iplayer, 70 or 80 of us have company supplied ipads which are locked down so tightly we can't even browse the internet on them.
In such a scenario the service providers would be compelled to register these devices (or their sim cards) as happens now when anyone buys a TV, receiver or service from a TV supplier, just checking our company's devices would cost a small fortune in man hours let alone doing it for millions of mobile devices.

My prediction is that companies will get a flat fee for all of their devices depending on the number of employees.

The cynic in me thinks this move will be designed to make more money for the BBC and will restrict the amount of devices someone can use with one license and quite possibly limit the amount of IP's one account can connect from, which will lead to an "enhanced" license fee that will allow for more devices and more connections from various IP's, all the while the politicians will know that when the new royal charter is introduced many hard working families in the country will be forced to shell out even more of their hard earned money for all members of the family to access BBC content.

Of course it will be designed to make more money. That is the only reason for closing the loophole. They have been talking about it for ages, but now that iPlayer is finally very popular, the numbers are there to justify a raise in fees.

Perhaps they will adopt a similar approach as Germany, which has a per household monthly fee. This simplifies collection and makes more money. Exactly, what they would want from my point of view.

[speedwell68]

They would have to reform the whole license I think. For example at the moment you are exempt from the license if you are watching television from a portable device not connected to the mains.

This is not the case. You need a license for mobile devices, this was defined decades ago for people that had TVs in caravans, campervans and the like.

As for banning the use of AdBlockers, that is a statement made by an idiot with no real understanding of how the technology works. What are they going to ban next? Hosts files?

[Hitcher]

They would have to reform the whole license I think. For example at the moment you are exempt from the license if you are watching television from a portable device not connected to the mains.

As said, this is not true -

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-yo...cence-top3

[zag]

user/password system including your tv license number just like netflix. Its not a hard thing to do.