BBC Opening Up TV Archives For Free

from the have-some-content dept

The BBC has announced that, thanks to the internet, they’ve decided to make large portions of their TV archives available to the public for free, as long as they’re not used for commercial purposes. The article is a little unclear, since it says DVD sales of certain programs are a “lucrative income source” – so, perhaps not the entire archive will be available. Still, it’s nice to see at least someone realize the power of the internet, and that opening up old content to the public isn’t a horrifying idea – even if it is a publicly supported broadcaster. Update: Read Danny O’Brien’s piece on why this is an even bigger deal than it seems. It has a fantastic quote that summarizes paragraphs and paragraphs running through my mind, but which I hadn’t been able to simplify into such a perfect sentence: “Content distribution is free: content restriction is costly.” Exactly!


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Comments on “BBC Opening Up TV Archives For Free”

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5 Comments
bopb Dunford (user link) says:

older programs

i would love to be able to download older programs from the bbc archives.will there be older movies there as well.i think the bbc are now getting on the ball at last.they are their for enertainment after all.and to watch and record the older programs, programs we all loved and watched every week.will bring back some happy days to us all now this cant be bad.hurry up with it,i cant wait

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