"On the other hand, they could easily provide paid service internationally but choose not to."
I doubt it's easy, but they've been working on it for a while now and it should be available fairly soon.
I agree that it may not be fair to characterise the content as 'stolen'; I chose to use that term out of laziness. However, it's definitely not fair to consume the content without paying, either. It increases the financial burden on the UK license payer. Many of the BBC's shows are available to a US audience - you just have to buy them on Amazon, or stream them on Netflix.
This highlights some oddities of the UK TV licensing system. I can listen to BBC radio all day every day; I can use the BBC websites all day every day; I can watch BBC TV programmes on their iPlayer service (so long as the programmes are "catch-up" and not streamed live) and I do not need a licence.
I only need a licence if I watch tv broadcast live. Everything is defined in law; the devices used to receive (which include smart phones and computers) and the signals (which weirdly include for example French telly received via satellite). A person could hate the BBC and all its output and never watch it but still need to pay the licence fee.
Personally, I welcome the BBC but the enforcement of the licence has been sub-optimal in the past.
I doubt it's easy, but they've been working on it for a while now and it should be available fairly soon.
I agree that it may not be fair to characterise the content as 'stolen'; I chose to use that term out of laziness. However, it's definitely not fair to consume the content without paying, either. It increases the financial burden on the UK license payer. Many of the BBC's shows are available to a US audience - you just have to buy them on Amazon, or stream them on Netflix.