Re: Copyright Licensing
Rubbish. The BBC is quite big enough to negotiate its own rates for that kind of licensing, it doesn't have to take anyone's a la carte offering as the last word.
The real answer is that the BBC makes a lot of money by selling its "content" to foreign broadcasters, and it has contracts with them that specify it has to forbid people from watching it directly. After all, why would I put up with Prime's crappy ads in Dr Who if I could just grab it on iPlayer instead?
It's about protecting the cozy cartel of broadcasters, at the expense of the great unwashed. As usual.