I'm extremely tempted to perform a Reocities style rescue job and handle the takedown notices as and when they come. Might not work for some of the interactive stuff but at least the text can be saved.
When you're on your deathbed, you're not going to tell your grandchildren "I sure wish I had upheld the strict letter of copyright law on the internet more." But you might say "remember that time I saved the BBC from itself?" And like Big Fish, it will be almost true.
That may or may not be true, however it is still copyright infringement. It doesn't matter incidentally if you copy it solely for personal use - stopping a rights holder from being an idiot is not a given exclusion.
I assume that the downvoters can explain how this is not infringing or how I'm not adding to the thread by noting this fact that some may not wholly realise?
This is true, but the BBC were extremely grateful for the copyright infringement that has seen the rescue of Q, Doctor Who, and countless other series - they may come to see that again (and to be honest, the chances of the BBC suing are probably very slight).
The BBC has a very permissive attitude to it's IP back catalogue as long as it isn't stuff they're currently trying to sell. See http://www.youtube.com/user/trippynet - this has been there for years, untouched. There are many other examples, try this for spoken word radio comedy: http://www.temples.me.uk/harry/read.php
This is the advantage of being a taxpayer-funded player in the media business, they simply do not have to care about monetizing their content if they don't feel like it. It is already paid for before it's made. They have been operating an unofficial policy of allowing pirates to act as a distribution network for years. This will probably change when they launch the paid iPlayer overseas.
It is also the reason why murdoch and by extension the murdoch press attack the BBC constantly. They see it as unfair, and it is, but it isn't about being fair to the murdoch empire. It's about getting a good deal on good TV for the british people.
Stated (and binding, as far as I know) license terms currently displayed for BBC websites:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/personal.shtml#4 - personal use, excerpt:
"Nothing in the Terms grants you a right or licence to use any trade mark, design right or copyright owned or controlled by the BBC or any other third party except as expressly provided in the Terms."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/business.shtml#2 - business terms, excerpt:
"2.1.1 you may not copy, reproduce, republish, disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer, download, post, broadcast, transmit, distribute, lend, hire, sub-license, rent, perform, make a derivative work from, make available to the public, adapt, alter, edit, re-position, frame, rebrand, change or otherwise use in any way any BBC Online Services and/or BBC Content in whole or in part on your product or service or elsewhere or permit or assist any third party to do the same except to the extent permitted at law ("Restricted Acts");"
FWIW I think that BBC created content should be under a liberal license like CC-BY-NC but it isn't; whether they press for legal action is orthogonal to the matter of it's lawfulness.
Could you explain how you find it patronising - is it that I'm pointing out they're breaking the law if they use this specific font [file] without a license but you think this is obvious, or that I'm assuming they know they're committing tortfeasance when you feel it's not obvious.
There are of course other possibilities, hence why I posed the question, they might be outside the Berne Convention/TRIPS countries and not be bound by copyright law, for example.
It's this particular pattern of saying "I assume you realize that [thing I actually assume you don't realize], right?"
Well, no. Obviously they don't realize that, or else they disagree on some more fundamental point, or they wouldn't have said whatever they said in the first place— which I assume you actually do realize.
So it's a very disingenuous way of communicating. All it really says is "I think I know more about this than you, but I decided not to be nice about informing you," which isn't a very productive way to start a conversation.
They mention take down notices which means they are aware of online copyright issues. I was attempting both to confirm that they felt this was tortuously infringing activity and giving the opportunity to respond with their moral justification.
>Well, no. Obviously they don't realize that
To recapitulate: if they mentioned "take down notices" then they appear to be living in the USA, aware of copyright in online material and cognisant of the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act (just an informed guess) as a minimum; my point was to confirm this and, like I said, dig for a response (without leading them on as to what sort of response to make - moral, legal, technical, political, ...).
The question was also serving as a flag for the issue for other readers.
So, whilst I'm prepared to entertain an argument that I was being disingenuous I'm afraid your premises are false and thus the reasoned conclusions equally unsound.
If you're looking to establish a relevant argument to the content of the thread then perhaps civil disobedience WRT copyright would be the way to go; there are strong arguments that the BBC should back a change in UK law as proposed elsewhere to ensure release of such works in to the public domain.
Regardless of your intentions, you should be aware in the future that that speech pattern will come off as insufferably condescending to a number of people, including myself.
If your aim is indeed to start a productive dialogue, I'd consider something more like, "That's a noble thought, but aren't you worried about the copyright implications?"
If the copyright owner doesn't allow anyone else to retain a copy, and they delete all their copies, then how will the work ever pass in to the public domain?
Just because virtual book burning is easier than hunting down and burning real books doesn't make it any more acceptable.
>If the copyright owner doesn't allow anyone else to retain a copy, and they delete all their copies, then how will the work ever pass in to the public domain?
Copyright is a contract between the state (the people) and you. You get protection from unlicensed copying of your works in exchange for release to the PD - if you don't disseminate your works then the public have no right to force them to be released into the PD.
There is possibly a loose end here but generally one can retain a copy for your own personal use (like keeping newspaper clippings) but you can't put this (or any substantial part of it) in a publicly accessible place.
It is only copyright infringement if they re-publish. Just getting an archive is not infringement, otherwise, you'd be infringing every time you view the site with your browser.
