BBC Takes Top Gear Online

[lightweight]

Last week the BBC had demanded video host YouTube remove many copies of its Top Gear TV service from its website. BBC has now made the entire Top Gear series available for online viewing. Previously, only old shows from past seasons were available online.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/?id=top_gear

But of course, hardcore TG fans have already downloaded the entrire series via torrents

[acemotorsport]

damit so thats why there were no top gear videos on google video

[Guest]

thank goodness, i was hoping to get a finalgear torrent cuase i missed the last one

[m5child]

FINALLY!!!!

we dont get Top Gear here in the US, just some lame discovery channel re runs of like 3 year old episodes...

This will definitely mean many happy hours of TV catching up on Top Gear!!!

[Coventrysucks]

People in the UK have to pay an annual "BBC tax" of £110, and now you scummy foreigners get the programmes for free.

It really does take the piss.

[Matt]

People in the UK have to pay an annual "BBC tax" of £110, and now you scummy foreigners get the programmes for free.

It really does take the piss.

We have to pay for the internet access to get them and that accumulates to far more than your measly tax.

[Jack_Bauer]

We have to pay for the internet access to get them and that accumulates to far more than your measly tax.

I think Cov's point is that it's us Brits that stump up the cash for the BBC to make all their shows, and then they go and broadcast it to the rest of the world for free. Your internet subscriptions do not go to the BBC to produce programmes, our license fees do and you guys are reaping the benefits.

It's a slightly strange move by the BBC and one that I think smacks of a desperation that is creeping into TV and other mass-media broadcasters with the advent of the likes of Youtube and Google Vids. Top Gear has been one of the BBC's most successful exports of recent decades, one that they have been selling off to TV companies all around the globe for vast sums of money. Now that they are broadcasting it from their own website it'll no doubt drive down the price they can charge overseas and dampen some of the interest from foreign TV companies. I guess they had to fight back against the likes of Youtube pinching their material no matter how badly it may hits them in the wallet.

[MrKipling]

I really don't know why people make such a fuss about the licence fee... I'll quite happily pay what basically amounts to less than 1 pint per week to:

A) not have to watch adverts on at least four TV channels
B) not have to listen to adverts on the radio
C) for radio 4 comedy
D) for programmes like Horizon, which wouldn't be made were it not for the Licence Fee
E) for commercial inpartiality
D) bbc.co.uk - one of the best resources on the internet.

In fact, I would pay the licence fee for any of these services on their own!

[NSXType-R]

Cool. I always watch it on Youtube. I couldn't figure out how to DL on Torrent anyway.

Wait, there's only 8 episodes? How is that even close to one season? They haven't uploaded them all yet?

[acemotorsport]

ha ha sucked in we get top gear for free here in australia on sbs 7.30 monday nights

[Niko_Fx]

People in the UK have to pay an annual "BBC tax" of £110, and now you scummy foreigners get the programmes for free.

It really does take the piss.

Life's a bitch sometimes

[Coventrysucks]

I don't object to the licence fee in principle, i.e. providing education and entertainment with reasonable impartiality for free (in reality this is simply not true).

I don't object to people downloading Top Gear from torrents, or watching them FOC from on Google Video etc.

I completely object to the BBC providing it for free to people outside the UK, whilst still insisting that people in the UK pay for it.

If the BBC wants to provide a global service, why should it be paid for by people from only one country?

More annoying is the fact that if you own a TV in the UK, you still have to pay the license fee, regardless of whether you actually do use, or want to use any of the BBC's services, and you have absolutely no say in what the company does with your money.


As a comparison, the licence fee is similar to AOL (BBC) charging you an annual fee if you bought a computer (TV), regardless of whether a) you actually wanted to use the internet in the first place (You could use a TV just to watch DVDs/Play video games*), b) actually wanted to use AOL as your ISP if you did want to use the internet (watch TV channels other than those provided by the BBC).

And then AOL announcing that it would only charge US citizens this fee, everybody else in the world would get the service free.

* It is possible to buy a TV for this purpose, and not pay the licence fee, except these people are such f**ktards that they automatically assume that you are breaking the law (watching tv but not paying the fee) and constantly harass you with threats of fines and court appearences, and can't understand the concept that people maybe wouldn't want to watch TV - they have a hard enough time with the concept that people might not own a TV at all!

[drakkie]

It's kinda been like this all along we don't pay any extra to receive BBC1&2 here but still get it !!! I must say though the BBC have the best stations i can receive !!!

EDIT:

Why can't I watch the video from outside the UK?
For many programmes, there are broadcast rights restrictions, which do not allow us to show BBC Two programmes and content to people outside the UK. In addition, broadband content is expensive for the BBC to stream, so we have to give priority to people within the UK, who ultimately bear the cost of us doing this through their licence fee.

Some BBC programmes are available via our international services (see bbc.co.uk/info/channels) or through agreements with commercial broadcasters overseas.

Additionally if you use any web accelerator software, you may find that you can no longer access UK Only streams. This is because the software routes information via another country. We advise disabling these when trying to access video content on bbc.co.uk.

I can't believe noone noticed this before me

[lightweight]

People in the UK have to pay an annual "BBC tax" of £110, and now you scummy foreigners get the programmes for free.

It really does take the piss.

I suppose that people who are against it, don't download music. I also assume that they are for Metallica on the famous Napster case.

I understand the concerns and I respect the opinions stated, but let's not pretend to be gobsmacked by the fact, since we all benefit from downloading. Downloading copyrighted content without paying a fee, is a blessing for cultural exchange.

[KonaGreen]

Well either way it's good news to me. I can't ever get torrents to work, and I have no need of storing aa whole bunch of TV episodes in the comp. Watching them off of the beeb will just fine for me.