On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 6:29 PM, Brian Butterworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7312460.stm > Does this mean that people can now utter the word BitTorrent in the BBC? > And now, a small whinge. It's this kind of attitude that makes me less likely, these days, to want to come into the Backstage mailing list. I'm not entirely sure what your point was here, Brian, but it seems a little snide. We're not all ignorant fuckwits, you might be amazed to hear - particularly those that pop into Backstage and try to help. You're a nice man really. You even drink decent beer, I seem to remember. So next time, why not post this link with the accompanying phrase "Why aren't the BBC using BitTorrent?", and see if you get a nicer reply? This isn't a rudeness contest, and I'd love to encourage my team back onto this list. Please help me do that. Here endeth the whinge. And now... Dear Mr Butterworth, Yes, naturally we're aware of BitTorrent. Here are some good reasons I've just thought up on the spur of the moment, which may or may not be official BBC reasons as to why we don't use BitTorrent, but all of which make quite a bit of sense: 1. Rights issues actually mean we've nothing really to put onto BitTorrent (and we're trying to change this by the way) 2. For those larger files that we do have rights to (like podcasts), the leading podcatchers, like iTunes, don't come with Torrent support 3. Actually, we've a ton of bandwidth available anyway; and because of the way our bandwidth is charged (and used), it doesn't actually reap an awful lot of savings for us anyway 4. BitTorrent adds complexity for reporting and monitoring usage of our content, which is one of the ways we can ensure that you're getting good value from your licence-fee 5. We'd really not want to push people through hoops to download new software just to consume our content*, especially given that we've a lot of less tech-savvy users than an average site I hope that helps. j * Yes, yes, RealPlayer. I'm working on it, though, for radio. Expect to see changes in May.
