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Comment by adnam | Hacker News Reader

@nubela: if this service can be used to bypass BBC content restrictions, you're going to have a bad time. A lot of BBC content can only be viewed within the UK, so if you can use GAC to access this content abroad, the following will happen:

- they can contact nominet to get your personal data

- you will likely get a letter from their lawyer

- you may get your .co.uk domain taken away

- you may be asked to hand over your entire database of users

- you may be sued for damages.

IANAL, just FYI.

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Why would this be any different from someone outside the US using a proxy to access BBC content say via GigaNews Vypr and their UK proxies? It's not like the underlying stream and any DRM is being tampered with, in which case the above might happen.

As an aside, if you're in the UK there are a other independent ISP's who provide unfiltered internet access [1]. I've used Andrews and Arnold since 2009 and can't fault them. Yes you pay a bit more each month, but you know that old adage about "you get what you pay for".

[1]: http://aa.net.uk/kb-broadband-unfiltered.html

It looks like it only works for blocked sites. I assume that BBC content restrictions wouldn't look like a blocked site to this.

Maybe you can help me. I actually paid for the licence this year but during the summer I moved to some other country and thus I'm unable to listen to the BBC radios. Is there a (legal) way around this?

Licenses apply to locations. You bought a license for your previous dwelling - you can get a refund for the unused part but other than that I don't know of any legal method to access BBC's domestic offerings from outside the appropriate geographic area.

Don't take this as gospel, I've read the laws that apply to TV licensing a couple of times but I'm not an authority on it.

Pffft. Let me tell you about this so-called refund. I applied for said refund of UK TV license after leaving the UK at the end of September. They told me they could only refund unused _quarters_ of the license, meaning that they would only refund me from the start of December (well in the _future_ at that point). Then they had the hide to tell me that because I was applying for a refund from a _past_ date (Sept) I had to prove that I was no longer in the UK. I sent them a lease, and a letter from my employer in my new country which they required by snail mail. They rejected it and told me they needed a final gas bill from the UK or something equivalent, which I again had to send by snail mail. I wrote them a letter about how the TV license was "a national disgrace, isn't it", and "should be abolished, shouldn't it". So glad to be out of Cameronland.

I see. Thanks!

Have you got any precedents for this happening?

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