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    British expats of the world, rejoice!

    No-one mentioned this yet?

    BBC director-general Mark Thompson wants to make iPlayer available globally within a year.

    There are a couple of ambiguities in there but anything that suggests we'll be able to access it from wherever we are has to be a good thing. I'd even be prepared to pay for a UK TV licence for myself, I suspect.

    #2
    British expats of the world, rejoice!

    I'm surprised they haven't done this already, it's such an obvious revenue source. I presume there are a lot of licensing issues, but that was true for the domestic player and they sorted that out, more or less.

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      #3
      British expats of the world, rejoice!

      This would be 'effin ace.

      Though I bet the licensing issues for the US will be the most difficult to sort out. I can unfortunately see us being in the same position as with the YouTube "broadcasts" of Indian Premier League cricket matches, where we are the only country in the world that is blacked out.

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        #4
        British expats of the world, rejoice!

        Very good news.

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          #5
          British expats of the world, rejoice!

          "I can unfortunately see us being in the same position as with the YouTube "broadcasts" of Indian Premier League cricket matches, where we are the only country in the world that is blacked out."

          What's up with that? Surely the IPL can't be expecting to make lots of money selling exclusive rights to a broadcaster in the US. Or have they already sold them to an Urdu/Hindi cable channel?

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            #6
            British expats of the world, rejoice!

            Fuck yeah! At bleedin' last!

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              #7
              British expats of the world, rejoice!

              What's up with that? Surely the IPL can't be expecting to make lots of money selling exclusive rights to a broadcaster in the US. Or have they already sold them to an Urdu/Hindi cable channel?
              They had previously sold them to a combination of one of the satellite providers (DirectTV, I think) and an online provider called WillowTV. Given that both of those outlets were reasonably successful in getting South Asians to shell out USD 250 a year and up for access, they weren't particularly interested when Modi asked them to waive the exclusivity provisions for YouTube.

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                #8
                British expats of the world, rejoice!

                Having looked at this again, I'm sure there must be a catch. If the commercial player is anything like BBC Worldwide television, then all you'll be able to watch on it will be business news, Top Gear and ancient episodes of Last Of The Summer Wine. So you can forget that.

                What intrigues me is the the sentence "develop a way to authenticate UK license payers, wherever they happen to be". Does this mean servicemen and UK residents on holiday, or does it mean that anyone in the world will be able to buy a British TV license (which I'd be more than happy to do, if I were given the opportunity)?

                I'm not breaking out the champagne yet.

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                  #9
                  British expats of the world, rejoice!

                  There's no reason why that shouldn't work.

                  The necessary technology is already being used for services like MLB.TV (streaming baseball games worldwide).

                  I'd also be tempted, but only if it access was to all BBC content.

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                    #10
                    British expats of the world, rejoice!

                    Of course there's no reason why it shouldn't work, but they could have done this years ago and didn't. And I've got no faith in Thompson anyway, given his cow-towing to the Murdoch media and his handling of the 6 Music shutdown clusterfuck.

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                      #11
                      British expats of the world, rejoice!

                      I'd imagine it means people who already have a licence in the UK, if for no other reason than that identity/address (UK licences are tied to a specific address) verification will be easier. It could in theory mean allowing non-residents to get a licence, but I suspect that's lower on their list of priorities.

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                        #12
                        British expats of the world, rejoice!

                        WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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                          #13
                          British expats of the world, rejoice!

                          The thing about the MLB is that you have a single rights holder, and one which is extremely careful in how it manages those rights. Whereas the BBC is not just a producer but a distributor and the various rights agreements have built up over time in a rather haphazard manner. When they launched the iPlayer they put a clause in new contracts (at least for independently produced but BBC financed stuff), but I think that clause only covered UK distribution, and e even then strictly on the terms of the iPlayer (ie 7 days streaming, download with 30 days expiry).

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                            #14
                            British expats of the world, rejoice!

                            Completely agree, the rights are the complicated part.

                            I was only citing MLB as an example that the technology exists and has been tested.

                            Even in the MLB case, the rights agreements with local and national broadcaster lead to strange "blackouts" of the streamed service. The state of Iowa, for instance, despite not having a major league team, is blacked out for home broadcasts of the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals.

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                              #15
                              British expats of the world, rejoice!

                              I presume it's possible to watch it now with a fake/proxy UK IP address, though I haven't tried it.

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                                #16
                                British expats of the world, rejoice!

                                It is yeah, but a way to do it legally would of course be lovely. Also, setting up a proxy/VPN requires a lot of spare bandwidth - from what I've read it seems I'd struggle to be able to run one over an Argentine broadband connection, for instance.

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