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BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk

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Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#51

Post by iso1631 »

Anything the BBC releases has to pass a market distortion test to make sure that it doesn't affect the competition - even commercial projects built by the commercial arm of the BBC (which doesn't receive any license fee funding)

BBC Jam for example was a project back in 2006 offering multi-media educational resources free across the UK. This was 2 years before Khan Academy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4655292.stm

Commercial companies complained, and the project was shut down.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6449619.stm

In 2008, UK broadcasters (BBC, ITV and Channel 4), seeing how Netflix was going, and bearing this in mind, built a fully commercial video on demand platform. That too was shut down by the government because "it might become too powerful".

The BBC's self funded commercial arm recently expanded in Austrailia, attracting complaints from the Guardian who had done the same thing.

https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-boss-bbc-distorting-...

Back to license fee funding, earlier this year the BBC, no longer able to use its resources to create the types of broadcasts due to covid (no coverage of sport for example when there's no sport), used its resources to help UK parents who were suddenly tasked with home-schooling 9 million children overnight.

Everyone was happy you'd think, but oh no - "The BBC is under pressure to axe access to its home-learning lessons – used by millions of children during the coronavirus crisis – over fears they will squeeze commercial curriculum providers out of the market"

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/calls-to-end-bbcs-lockdown-lessons...

Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#52

Post by ArgyleSound »

easytiger wrote: post #45
mhh__ wrote: post #42

The BBC is perpetually limited to "not compete" with "real" companies. That is why you still cannot watch anything you want on the iPlayer despite the service having been working for long enough that they had could've really staked at out a claim for themselves. Even if you pay the licence fee they are still overly limited in what they can let you watch - in doing so the regulators have probably killed off the BBC's…

> If you wonder why the answer is successive Tory government don't like the BBC at an ideological and personal level (hence why the BBC ends up having to pay the once free licence fees of old people) The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills took control of the editorial policy of not just the BBC but also print media. For anyone not familiar with the debate, the BBC is inexorably accused of both being…

> The unelected Labour opposition

???

Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#53

Post by BigJono »

zbuf wrote: post #34
adwww wrote: post #14

I love the descriptions. > School Computer Class, general atmosphere in pre-fabricated room, with hum from computers, keys clicking, occasional background speech, T.V. whistle from monitors & people moving around. Like did it make a big difference if the classroom was pre-fabricated? Perhaps it does to a BBC sound recorder!

It does! Love it. Anyone who grew up in UK schools will know a prefab classroom hut. So from that description I immediately know what type of reverb the sound will have. Crucially, how different it will be from eg. a high ceiling room in a brick building. I'd say that's a great description.

Yeah we have something similar in Australia. Pretty much every school when I was growing up had these exact same portable classrooms with the distinctive shitty-looking rectangular roof. Every single school I walked past or played sports against had them too.

https://aaportablebuildings.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/0...

I would have thought they'd have something more modern looking these days. But when I Googled around this article from 3 years ago came up with some newish looking ones in the exact same style.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/record-one-milli...

So I guess some things never change. At least they come in that nice blue now instead of the awful brown and green they used to use.

Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#54

Post by adwww »

zbuf wrote: post #34
adwww wrote: post #14

I love the descriptions. > School Computer Class, general atmosphere in pre-fabricated room, with hum from computers, keys clicking, occasional background speech, T.V. whistle from monitors & people moving around. Like did it make a big difference if the classroom was pre-fabricated? Perhaps it does to a BBC sound recorder!

It does! Love it. Anyone who grew up in UK schools will know a prefab classroom hut. So from that description I immediately know what type of reverb the sound will have. Crucially, how different it will be from eg. a high ceiling room in a brick building. I'd say that's a great description.

We had just one of the huts left in my UK school - until IIRC the roof blew away?!

I don't remember the distinct reverb, my overriding memory is of being far too hot in summer and far too cold in winter.

Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#55

Post by easytiger »

ArgyleSound wrote: post #52
easytiger wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you wonder why the answer is successive Tory government don't like the BBC at an ideological and personal level (hence why the BBC ends up having to pay the once free licence fees of old people) The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills took control of the editorial policy of not just the BBC but also print media. For anyone not familiar with the debate, the BBC is inexorably accused of both being…

> The unelected Labour opposition ???

*failed to win the election, unelected to government

Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#56

Post by JdeBP »

bb123 wrote: post #47
JdeBP wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deal differs from other sound libraries in that educational purposes are covered by a quite different licence to commercial purposes. This is reflective of the mandate of the Royal Charter that incorporates the BBC, that it "support learning". The various restrictions on endorsement and representation and suchlike in the RemArc licence reflect the Royal Charter's imposition that the BBC itself be non-commercial.…

Thats very interesting, you seem to know a lot about how the BBC is structured. Do you mind if I ask how the for-profit prohibition of their charter aligns with the ad-supported international BBC News websites and broadcasts on BBC Worldwide?

I know as much as anyone else who has actually read the Royal Charter. (-:

The Charter covers "UK Public Services" and the "World Service", as does the Agreement with the Minister of the Crown. The World Service is a specific thing, which you can read about for yourself.

* So public service broadcasting to other countries isn't within the terms of the Charter.

* Commercial activities are prohibited to the BBC itself. They are limited to commercial subsidiaries.

The upshot of this is that services that you get outwith the U.K. are not from the BBC. They are from commercial subsidiary companies, such as BBC Studios for example, or from joint venture companies. BBC Studios is what broadcasts BBC content such as BBC America outwith the United Kingdom. Similarly, the WWW site that is served up to computers outwith the United Kingdom isn't provided by the BBC. It is provided by BBC Global News Ltd, another commercial subsidiary. It's quite different to the WWW site that is seen within the U.K..

The commercial subsidiaries aren't funded by the Licence Fee, and the BBC itself is not permitted to make a profit from its dealings with them, which must be "at arm's length" (to quote the Agreement).

* https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/governance/charter

Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#57

Post by easytiger »

JdeBP wrote: post #50
easytiger wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you wonder why the answer is successive Tory government don't like the BBC at an ideological and personal level (hence why the BBC ends up having to pay the once free licence fees of old people) The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills took control of the editorial policy of not just the BBC but also print media. For anyone not familiar with the debate, the BBC is inexorably accused of both being…

That's only BBC One. BBC Two, BBC Four, and BBC News also exist. Of course, if one only looks at one channel things seem lopsided. Providing different services on different channels was partly the point.

> Providing different services on different channels was partly the point.

No, BBC one's remit is not to just show fluffy nonsense

It's remit is in fact:

> BBC One’s remit is to be the BBC’s most popular mixed-genre television service across the UK, offering a wide range of high quality programmes. It should be the BBC’s primary outlet for major UK and international events and it should reflect the whole of the UK in its output. A very high proportion of its programmes should be original productions.

Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#58

Post by MrsPeaches »

ArgyleSound wrote: post #52
easytiger wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you wonder why the answer is successive Tory government don't like the BBC at an ideological and personal level (hence why the BBC ends up having to pay the once free licence fees of old people) The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills took control of the editorial policy of not just the BBC but also print media. For anyone not familiar with the debate, the BBC is inexorably accused of both being…

> The unelected Labour opposition ???

To give the full quote:

> The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills took control of the editorial policy of not just the BBC but also print media.

Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#59

Post by MrsPeaches »

easytiger wrote: post #45
mhh__ wrote: post #42

The BBC is perpetually limited to "not compete" with "real" companies. That is why you still cannot watch anything you want on the iPlayer despite the service having been working for long enough that they had could've really staked at out a claim for themselves. Even if you pay the licence fee they are still overly limited in what they can let you watch - in doing so the regulators have probably killed off the BBC's…

> If you wonder why the answer is successive Tory government don't like the BBC at an ideological and personal level (hence why the BBC ends up having to pay the once free licence fees of old people) The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills took control of the editorial policy of not just the BBC but also print media. For anyone not familiar with the debate, the BBC is inexorably accused of both being…

Are you saying that Labour controls print media and the BBC in the UK?

Re: BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

#60

Post by faceplanted »

easytiger wrote: post #45
mhh__ wrote: post #42

The BBC is perpetually limited to "not compete" with "real" companies. That is why you still cannot watch anything you want on the iPlayer despite the service having been working for long enough that they had could've really staked at out a claim for themselves. Even if you pay the licence fee they are still overly limited in what they can let you watch - in doing so the regulators have probably killed off the BBC's…

> If you wonder why the answer is successive Tory government don't like the BBC at an ideological and personal level (hence why the BBC ends up having to pay the once free licence fees of old people) The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills took control of the editorial policy of not just the BBC but also print media. For anyone not familiar with the debate, the BBC is inexorably accused of both being…

> Both TV and Radio output quality has been absolutely eviscerated in the last 10 or so years

Who was in power all that time?

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