I'm trying to think of companies that understand this but I can only think of GOG. Is there a similar company for films or music?
Of all the times to make this comment, in a story about iPlayer is probably not the most sensible time. The BBC invented the whole idea of internet catch up TV. It was the first big delivery of TV or film over the internet. It was launching in 2005, years before Hulu, Netflix or any other equivalent. The technology required to do this (particularly in CDNs) didn't exist and they built up the infrastructure from scratch.
In terms of technology to deliver it, they work with what's there in terms of getting it to as many people as possible.
They could provide content in completely open formats but then due to contractual restrictions would be limited in what they give.
They could buy all their content outright but then due to financial restrictions they would be limited in what they give.
They are extremely open about the decisions and compromises they have to make.
They do listen to license payer and work hard on their behalf. Recently they worked with license holders to allow downloads as well as streaming on their mobile radio app.
They are not directly state funded, they are independent of the government.
So it's not all that surprising that they end up with the standard industry attitude on a lot of these issues. As frustrating as that is.
Presumably they shut down RTMP streams because open source clients were delivering content outside the UK. Seems reasonable to me.
BBC is state funded so it should be easier for it (easier than for a for profit company like GOG) to not be evil.
In fact, internal systems already exist for accessing any BBC programme from the last (n) years. There's also a system for schools and universities that gives you access to the last year or so of programming. It's pressures from external production companies that prevent these from being rolled out to the public.
However, there will always be rights issues until the state has complete ownership over all TV production - which is never going to happen.
(Also - what's 'evil' about content creators wanting to protect their intellectual property and income?)
What exactly is DRM protecting them against? It's not geo-blocking, that's done on the server. There's no "download button" that suddenly appears on iPlayer if the content isn't encrypted. So please remind me what protective benefits DRM brings the rights holders and content creators?
Keep in mind, it's trivial to screen capture video on any half-decent computer. Anyone "determined" enough simply needs screen capture software and then hit record.
I can't find stats on it. Can anyone else?
Shows like Gardeners Question Time (GQT) are stalwarts of BBC programming. The BBC could easily produce it, or commission it from a production company on the basis that it's made direct in to the public domain [in copyright terms]. But that would presumably result in less money to the producers/talent.
There was scandal some time back that BBC were paying "talent" upwards of £1 million per series to do a single show a week. Thing is at the time the talent of course were also the owners of the production company for their show and so the BBC were paying their company some greater amount. The BBC promotion of such independent production companies makes them world ranking sellers whilst there seems no reason that such shows couldn't be produced with only a name change and done under the BBC as producer.
Shows like Graham Norton aren't exactly ground breaking, you get an ex-hospital radio presenter (or whoever) to chat inanely with people who are there to popularise their latest book; you get the interviews because who doesn't want to advertise their film on primetime BBC, it's not rocket science. Why can't the BBC own a show like that? Why isn't Mr Norton, or whoever, employed by the BBC and hired out if they're in demand for other shows?
In short it all seems like a huge nepotistic mess of old-boy networks, and smoke and mirrors rather than a corporation that works for the people using their taxes and license fee money. As if the divisional managers in a corporation got together and said, hangabout we can make our divisions private enterprises and charge the parent company double to do what we do now??
But I'm probably completely mistaken ...