The EU and IPTV

[Jacques]

Well it seems like the TVWF (Television without Frontiers) Directive may include IPTV in it's remit, which means....yes you guessed it - ofcon. Yes ofcon will get their grubby little hands in IPTV and will regulate what you can watch over the internet.

Disc shapped future anyone?

Consider the incongruity. The BBFC is quite happy, apparently, to trust adults to veiw R18 material and to take responsibility for keeping their contents away from the eyes of children. This is despite the fact that these are unencrypted and can be inserted into playback machines at any time of the day or night. Yet ofcon enforce broadcasters, who can only accept orders from adults possessing those credit cards only issued to the over-18s, who confine their broadcasts to the hours after 22.00, and who encrypt their services only to be unlocked by inserting a special PIN number, and limiting them to only show the tamer class of content.

[randyandy]

Now that's the argument the industry should be making for stuff being shown on satellite. Well said Jacques!

Unfortunately because of what is now shown on the internet they will probably turn the table argue that their standards are correct and that's why they are getting involved with it.

If they are successful I think we can all look forward to a disc shaped future.

!annoyed!

[Jacques]

Of course there is another way apart from a disc shaped future. The ofcon code, which they all hide behind, says that they cannot broadcast anything over softcore 18 rated material. So if every time a broadcaster breached this we all noted it down (time, channel, program, content etc) and then grassed them up to ofcon, what would happen?

Well they would keep getting fined and possibly have their licence taken from them for repeated breaches. Result towing the line means fewer subscribers, less income, full knowlege of softcore shite etc.

Now would that force them to change their ways and make a legal challenge ofcon?

[Mrs McCavity]

The TVWF got booted into touch about 3 months ago when they idiots could not even agree on a digital platform. if they agreed to a Europeen TVWF we would be forced to get what is lawfull in Spain and France, so we would get porn anyway. 2 weeks ago was with OFCOM, even the goverment are breaking the rules, south lanarkshire TV over IP,

Phil McC on Bev

[Jacques]

I sort of agree with you there Phil - my worry is that we get the situation like the current pan-european satellite services i.e. everybody is equally repressed but some are more equally repressed than others........

[Mrs McCavity]

In my terms and conditions should we face any legislation like TVWF or OFCOM. I will move every bit of adult content to my server in Taiwan it would take less than a day to move it all, so lets see OFCOM learn Chinnese or Tai. They can't stop open Piracy or Vile Porn on the internet. they can't stop terrorist web-sites tell me how they are going to stop a plain and ordinary porn site you can watch on your TV in France, Spain, Belgium and most of the rest of Europe. The point is if its not in their area of legislation which I must point out legaly it is not then they don't give a toss.

Phil McC on Bev's

[Jacques]

Seems I my fears may come to fruition if this is anything to go by (its VOD not IPTV but this must surely mean they are looking at it?):

[milly]

[Phil mCc]

From OFCOM's own guidance34. Services that don?t meet these criteria are generally not licensable. In addition,
the legislation specifically excludes a number of communications services from
licensing (see section 233 of the Communications Act), including:
a. Two-way services ? includes video conferencing and similar services,
b. Internet services ? includes websites and web-casting.
c. On demand services ? true video on demand (where the viewer receives
the content directly in response to an individual request).
d. Closed user groups - services only receivable by a specific category of
person (for example a professional group) that are not receivable by any
other persons, even at a cost.

Even if they got an agreement they would then need to go back to goverment here and get the act changed, this is an act of parliment. Also what is legal in 1 country can be sent from there, like the whole of Europe has Porn legalised on scrambled service so we still would get it.

The act works in our favour as I have servers in Amsterdam. I last thing this is web-casting but it is Uni-cast which meens it is file requested so not Broadcast, this is also exempt...Finally I will move my client server to Taiwan in 8 hours if I need to.

Phil McC