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chilli2
Elite

Now TV in the Channel islands - not alowed under broadcasting rights regulations

If you are trying to watch Now TV in the Chanel islands, and/orthe Isle of man, Roku will activly block you, as wathcing Now TV and other UK catchup services in the Chanel islands/Isle of Man is prohibited under established broadcast rights.

 

See here https://forums.roku.com/viewforum.php?f=28

 

Are Roku wrong on this?

I was trying to assist someone setting up a Rou device, but Roku have told me in no uncertain terms that trying to circumvent rights restrictions, and allow people in the Channel islands/Isle of man is in breach of interntaional regualtions as these servces are not avialable outside the UK

20 REPLIES 20
chilli2
Elite

Any update n this, or is it a lost cause?

caseyb1993
Legend 5
Legend 5

@chilli2 wrote:

Any update n this, or is it a lost cause?


Any response @Simon-J 🙂

I am not staff, I am a customer that likes to help,
so please click the Thank You/Thumbs Up button if I helped you out and maybe even accept it as a solution? 🙂
Anonymous User
Not applicable

I am Jersey based and NOTHING would work with Roku - iplayer, All4, My5 etc etc until I de-registered my account and re-signed up using Tunnel bear - ie. faking a UK IP. Everything then worked fine. You only have to do this whilst signing up or adding channels. 

chilli2
Elite

In my dealings with Roku on this, they were admant that using Roku in the CI to watch UK content was against the law, and in breach of broadcasting rights.

 Any talk of watching content designed for the UK in the channel islands was immediatly  shutdown on the Roku support forum, as it was seen as piracy, and highly illegal.

 

So if your in the Channel Islands and you watch content from the main UK broadcasters, such as the BBC, ITV, Sky, Chanel 4, Chanel 5, or even listen to the likes of BBC Radio Jersey or BBC Radio Geurnsey then woe betide you, you are commiting a serious offence.

 either that or Roku  are a bunch of clueles fools when it comes down to understanding what area covers UK Broadcast rights ( more than just the UK )

 

There hasnt even been any response from Now TV on this, at the end of the day its content providers such as now TV that will be losing out as people either turn to pirate solutions via the likes of Kodi add ons to get their Game of thrones fix, and/or just turn to other services such as Netflix and Amazon prime via the Fire TV eco system

Andy
Legend 5
Legend 5

@Simon-J Did NOW TV manage to get any sort of dialogue going with Roku on this.

 

It's frustrating if residents are being prevented from accessing services they are entitled to use because of the way companies are classifying Crown dependencies.

 

I wonder if it's worth affected users also contacting BBC to lobby them on making iPlayer available on affected devices, maybe a dialogue between BBC and Roku might get somewhere, although looking at the BBC help site it appears they've been negotiating with Google for a couple of years on the same thing, not clear if that's been resolved yet.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/troubleshooting/mobile-tablet/android-isle-of-man-channel

 

Simon-J
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi @Andy,

 

Thanks for flagging this up again. 

 

A rep from our Roku team here did state they would be in touch with Roku to discuss this. Sadly I hadn't heard anything back since so I've now chased this up and will let you know once the discussion has taken place. 

 

Thanks

 

Simon

ukbobboy
Legend

@Simon-J @chilli2 @Andy @Anonymous User @caseyb1993

 

Hey Guys

 

You know, I'm not surprised that Roku, an American company, has difficulty associating the Channel Islands with the UK as a whole.  I mean, it's well known that 50% of Americans have never visited another country, not even landlocked countries such as Mexico or Canada, and as such are geographically challenged about the rest of the world.

 

For example, a few years back in a US centred forum, I was accused of being in the US, not the UK as I was claiming, because I could not possibly know about the things we were discussing at the time. I got the distinct impression that, for him, the distance between the UK and US was the same as the distance between Earth and Mars.

 

I guess that Simon J is going to have a tough time trying educate Roku that for years they have been wrong about the Channel Islands status, I wish you good luck with that endeavor.

 

 

UK Bob

 

Mark_Weinreb
Legend 5
Legend 5

Of course, @ukbobboy, mention The Channel Islands to a Californian and they can only think of the island chain off the coast of southern California. It probably never occurs to them that there might just be another group of islands collectively known as The Channel Islands. Roku are, of course, based in California. The defence rests.  

Anonymous User
Not applicable

@Simon-J 

Any more news on this?

We bought a Roku stick and couldn't get it to add the NowTV app. Does the same issue apply if we buy a NowTV stick (as these are made by Roku)?

 

Thanks

 

Howard

Simon-J
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi @chilli2,

 

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

 

We have let the team that develops on Roku know about this, I'll keep you updated as soon as I have any new information.

 

Has your friend been able to set up a NOW TV account at all? - It might be an idea for them to contact us on Live Chat or email so we can capture their details for further investigation (for data protection reasons we can't take these from anyone other than the account holder)

 

Thanks

 

Simon