Yesterday, Daring Fireball linked to two pirated copies of the recent (and excellent) BBC 4 documentary about the Gutenberg Press.

It is an excellent programme, and certainly something I would recommend that people watch, but it does peeve me somewhat that it’s being distributed illegally for free when it has been paid for by the British license-fee payer.

We Brits often forget that the BBC’s output is not free, but moreover that it is collectively owned by all of us taxpayers and funded largely by way of the Television License. That is, we own that content and our license fees will be higher next year if the BBC doesn’t make its expected return on it.

(Aside: as it happens in this particular case it may well sell just fine in spite of being available for free on the ’Net; the programme really is that good. That’s hardly the point though.)