Stephen Fry on the BBC iPlayer and free digital distribution

A digital copy is a perfect copy. Once on the net it's out there and will be bit torrented and Limewired and Gnutella-ed and otherwise P2P distributed. The BBC is making a lot of enemies giving away free programmes to an internet that everyone else is trying to "monetise"

http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=44

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• stephenfry
• bbc
• iplayer
• bittorrent
• limewire

[ginya1]

I can not tell you how sites like you tube has opened my eyes to the world beyond my satilite. I would never have been able to see "Kingdom", QI or The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive". (or talking cats for that matter). I understand there is a problem with compensation but I also know I would never had bought the entire series of ABOFAL unitil You tube came along.

was Stephen for or against sites like You tube?

[Buffoon1980]

My existence would be a substantially less enjoyable place to be were it not for the episodes of QI here on YouTube, in a very real sense they've helped me through a difficult time. And I'd pay good money to buy the DVDs were they ever released in my country.

[Pestington]

@ginya1 I know this was 3 years ago but I thought you might like an answer ,if you have not already got one. He does the outtro for a big youtuber, Charlieissocoolike. That suggests to me he's for Youtube.

[TalesOfWar]

@Corrupt5358 His point was that other content providers are against the iPlayer because the BBC are giving it away for free, because, as you say, we pay our license fee, so we can access it. Outside of the UK that's a different matter, why should we pay so that people not contributing also get access to it? That's why they've just announced a subscription service for people outside of the UK. You seem to be arguing the same point he is but your anger is blinding you to it.

[Corrupt5358]

God this guy is so up his own ass it's unbelievable! The fucking license fee has already paid for these damn programs, they should be free to the world. No one likes copyright law, except assholes like him who have already been overpaid.

[blazednlovinit]

Stephen Fry, he has the same idiosyncrasies as he does in QI.

Such an intelligent man

[mmmhistory]

Some of us would never have known the wonders of Stephen Fry if it wasn't for those that get the Vids off the iplayer and are nice enough to share them. I think the majority of those that do get videos don't plan on making dvd's of the content and selling them. There's probably a good number that do, but I have to say keeping people from viewing certain things because of copy right or similar laws is sort of like restricting someone from learning and knowledge just because of where they reside.