BBC Archives only offer 3 min long clips!

[Richard M]

Thousands of clips from BBC radio and TV factual programmes will be free to download from the internet this autumn, the BBC has announced.

The clips of up to three minutes long will include natural history footage and be available on the BBC website.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...io/3525455.stm

I've been following this story for ages on Slashdot but it looks like the clips will only be three minutes long and not the full programs as we'd first thought!


/me goes back to using ed2k for TV programs...

[paulyoung666]

probably because they have a back catalogue they will still want to sell

[philip.j.fry]

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

probably because they have a back catalogue they will still want to sell

The annoying thing is, that we have actually already paid for these shows. I thought they were going to be distributing whole episodes over some sort of p2p network

Originally Posted by philip.j.fry

The annoying thing is, that we have actually already paid for these shows. I thought they were going to be distributing whole episodes over some sort of p2p network

Paying your licence fee doesn't give you any legal interest in the copyright of BBC output. There are all kinds of complications involved in making programming available - not least of which is that actors featuring in any repeated programme, or one sold on video or DVD, are entitled to a further payment. I suppose it would be feasible to distribute very old archive material for free, if it's of little commercial value and those who made it are dead, but I can't see them making the extra effort TBH.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by towny

Paying your licence fee doesn't give you any legal interest in the copyright of BBC output. There are all kinds of complications involved in making programming available - not least of which is that actors featuring in any repeated programme, or one sold on video or DVD, are entitled to a further payment. I suppose it would be feasible to distribute very old archive material for free, if it's of little commercial value and those who made it are dead, but I can't see them making the extra effort TBH.

Sorry towny, not following you around (honest)..

Just to give an idea of how much this sort of thing would cost. Christopher Biggins was on the radio (or so I have heard, I am telling this second hand), and somebody asked him about a repeat showing of I Claudius. He said the BBC couldn't afford it (several cast members went on to become stars, John Hurt, Brian Blessed etc). To back this up, he bought up the repeats of "Porridge". When he was filming the original episodes, he got £90 an episode. For the repeats, he now gets £1000 an episode.

Imagine how much the BBC would have to pay for the rights to stream their archive..

[Shaun]

Just to bump this thread, for those that dont know about this site I thought I'd provide a link

http://www.uknova.co.uk/