Piracy: Responding to BBC

[Aractus]

Clearly, a better quality image is a perfect justification for piracy.  Pardon me, now - I have to laugh til my gums bleed.

Boru

Are you saying it isn't? There's no legal difference between ripping it from the BBC iPlayer like this:

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Or going to TPB and downloading the BBC broadcast version from a torrent (the only difference is if you upload it to someone else). And if you'd bothered to read the link you might understand what I'm getting at. This time last year the BBC said that VPNs and Proxies are piracy tools that can circumvent geo-blocking technologies and that Australian ISPs should assume that heavy users are using their VPNs to pirate BBC content (see page 6 of their submission):

* It is reasonable for ISPs to be placed under an obligation to identify user behaviour
that is ‘suspicious’ and indicative of a user engaging in conduct that infringes
copyright. Such behaviour may include the illegitimate use by internet users of IP
obfuscation tools in combination with high download volumes.  The
determination of what an ‘illegitimate’ use of such tools is, and the threshold of
what would be considered a ‘high’ download volume over a period of time, would
need to take into account legitimate explanations in order to avoid false positives
and to safeguard the fundamental rights of consumers — such matters would be
open to further industry discussion and agreement.

...

* ISPs need a policy to deal with repeat offenders.  The exact parameters of what
would be the agreed measures or procedures should be the subject of an ongoing
dialogue between the industry and ISPs. Possible sanctions could include
subjecting repeat offenders to a slowing down of their bandwith but stopping
short of cutting off the internet service, save except in the most serious and
egregious circumstances, as is the case in the United States. A competent
Court or authority should be involved in such cases.

Funny isn't it how one-sided their argument is? Yes it's perfectly true that VPNs or Proxies can circumvent geo-blocking - that's one reason why users like them. But it's laughable that a publishing company - that still makes money from Classic Who in breach of the screen actors guild contracts - would think that ISPs should ensure that Australians aren't finding ways to get around the BBC's geo-blocking!

Maybe they should kick ABC's ass into gear and get them to deliver a comparable service here before they complain about what the ABC's customers are doing? From Jan 2008 - June 2010 we had a channel called ABC HD - which was ABC in HD. Then ABC launched News 24 and used the HD channel to deliver the service. Why you would waste HD on a news channel is beyond me. News 24 has an audience share of about 1%, ABC has an audience share of around 10% - but back in 2008 before News 24 was launched it was more like 17%. So the ABC's viewership has decreased around 40% in just 7 years. Hmm - I wonder how they could increase it? Oh that's right, perhaps by making their News channel SD and bringing back ABC HD.

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Okay, here's the same screenshots from last night's ABC broadcast (recorded on my PC):



BBC broadcast (from The Pirate Bay):



There is one advantage to the ABC broadcast - the Audio is MPEG 2.0 @ 256kbps.

And here's a list of the files:

Aractus, and since Channel 7 has exclusive right to the grand final, then the whole country can bathe in the glory of SD!
Foxtel has their HD cameras at the G but cannot use them!

I find that insulting.

Well we have the strictest anti-siphoning laws anywhere in the world.