BBC iPlayer cracks down and blocks VPN users

[George Eycott]

> So the point here is what. I pay the BBC license fee and am happy to do
so.

Me too.

> If people outside of UK who do not pay the license fee are getting BBC
> content for nothing via a VPN or anything else they are stealing stuff I
> pay for.

I agree - was not suggesting otherwise. Though the overseas and VPN part of
your statement is irrelevant. If people do not pay the license fee and get
BBC stuff for nothing they are stealing stuff we pay for. Don't care where
they are or how they do it.

> If using a VPN in UK is blocking GIP or iPlayer or anything else surely
> the solution is in the configuration of the VPN ?

Unfortunately there isn't much a user can do. Access from the main VPN
providers has been blocked, full stop. One of the points of a VPN is that
you cannot see where the original connection is coming from so the BBC
cannot see whether the connection is from the UK or not so they have blocked
the whole lot. There may be legitimate reasons for people in the UK wanting
to use a VPN (though I personally think most of them are from the tinfoil
hat brigade) and this move has stopped them using get_iplayer or indeed
Iplayer itself.

1. I understand and agree that discussion of bypassing restrictions so you
can access BBC content overseas is off topic
2. I appreciate that there are people who live overseas but pay a license
fee that would like to access BBC content - the BBC should be doing
something about it but again, that is not the purpose of get_iplayer and is
therefore also off topic.
3. The fact that VPN use has been blocked is potentially of interest to
users of get_iplayer (and Iplayer come to that) who are UK based and pay
their license fee, so why would that be off topic? That was all I was
saying!

Cheers

George