Some of these (I'm looking at you, BBC iPlayer) aren't even available in the USA.
I agree that this is something the BBC should look at making available more widely as a revenue generator to fund it's operations but it's not a priority for them.
(I'm in Canada)
On the other hand, how exactly will the government justify collecting tax from non-citizens (even worse, non-residents!)?
How do the US justify taxes when I (in the UK) buy something from Threadless which is based in the US? Or my subscription to Backblaze? Or the sales tax when I visit the US (where I'm neither a citizen nor resident)?
It's pretty much a non-issue.
Technically though it probably wouldn't be a tax. A tax is collected by the state and this would almost certainly go through a limited company which while ultimately owned by the state is legally different.
Now, with American shows, I think there could easily be a good business model - we've seen English TV channels pick up American shows (sometimes running almost in sync with America, more often than not running a year or two behind) with success. Examples include The West Wing, Friends, Glee, Will and Grace, Family Guy, CSI and so on. So I think there could be enough of an audience over here to be worth doing it.
But iPlayer for non-UK viewers, it just isn't feasible. Firstly, BBC have the content licensed for UK viewing only, and they can't pay extra for international viewers because they are funded by the public (TV license over here). For the BBC website, international viewers see adverts, but that model can't be extended to iPlayer for a few reasons. Firstly, and least importantly, BBC never puts advertising into its shows, and they don't want to go against that, even for an international audience. That could be got around quite easily. Secondly, selling video adverts is a lot more complex (from a sales point of view, not technical) than shoving them into a website, it would take more work from them. And finally, if they were to sell adverts and open up iPlayer to an international audience, I doubt they would make enough revenue from the adverts to justify internationally licensing the content, i.e. there just wouldn't be enough people watching it.
Right now there's no enforcement of the license fee, just the knowledge that, to watch live broadcasts (either on TV or online) you must have a license, and if a TV license inspector catches you, you'll be in trouble.
I think the BBC must have some form of tie-in with the ISPs as I know a number of people that have had this happen to them.
And if I watched to avoid it, I could always use something like www.tvcatchup.com to watch the live content, and just go onto the iPlayer for VOD content (for which you don't need a license).
I wonder - traditionally a TV license is per household, not per person, meaning that if I want to watch on a TV in a friend's house, they need to have a license, not me. With internet access, how does that work. For example, say they were able to prove I had been watching iPlayer live streams in my house, what if it was a friend watching on their laptop, and they own a license? What if you're watching from a public WiFi or a 3G connection on a train? The "license for the house" doesn't quite translate.
It seems like they're working on it (iPad only, by the looks of it): http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/mar/02/bbc-global-iplay...
You're right, though, ad-supported iPlayer isn't feasible.
Rent a virtual private server on any of the many UK VPS services. Then use get_iplayer[1] to download TV and radio programmes when you want to.
Although I live in the UK (and pay a TV license), I use this method because it's much more convenient. It doesn't require flash, lets me keep the programme for as long as I want, and downloads are really fast. For example I can grab a 2 hour film from iPlayer into a .flv file in about 15-20 minutes.
[1] http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html