Hurray for the BBC! Would that we could emulate them in some of their endeavours.
"In 2003, when the BBC switched off the encryption on its satellite feeds, allowing anyone who bought a receiver (including the French and Belgians) to watch free satellite TV, the studios went nuts, saying that they would lose licensing revenue from continental Europe.
Hollywood swore it would boycott the BBC: No movies for you!
The BBC stood fast -- after all, anyone with a camera can be a filmmaker, but to be the BBC, you need 29,000 employees and 78 years of history -- and when the studios' fiscal year wrapped up, they came, hats in hand, to the BBC, asking if they couldn't please have some of the money they were accustomed to for satellite licensing.
The greatest irony here is that it takes a publicly-funded broadcaster from a cozy liberal democracy to teach America's lumbering, anti-competitive Hollywood dinosaurs what a real, competitive offering looks like."
Wired News: The Beeb Shall Inherit the Earth
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