Restriction of BBC Radio HLS/DASH to authorised third parties

[tommyrot]

I'm playing catch up here. On Friday 29th Sept I noticed all of my streams go dead.

The includes these:

**BBC Radio 3**
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/man...three.m3u8

**BBC Radio 4**
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/man...ourfm.m3u8

**Naim Classical**
http://mscp3.live-streams.nl:8250/class-flac.flac

**Naim Jazz**
http://mscp3.live-streams.nl:8340/jazz-flac.flac

All of the above streams stopped working on my Linn device(s). I then checked my Naim MuSo – it worked for these same stations. I concluded that Naim probably use different streams anyway.

Next, I plugged the above URL/Streams into VLC. Bizarrely, they all still work. At the risk of overshooting my technical knowhow, I'm wondering how it is that they still work in VLC (on my Mac) but not MinimStreamer on my NAS. I doubt VLC is returning any listener data, so is the BBC differentiating between streaming methods somehow? If so, it's strange that they've cut off the supply to home streamers, branding them unsupported, and left computer apps untouched (yet). Perhaps they'll wield their sickle soon.

I'm tempted, purely out of curiosity, to install MinimStreamer on macOS and see if it works, but I suspect I already know the answer.

**Update 1**: The below stream works fine on my Linn device via Minimstreamer:
Global Bach Community
http://38.96.148.28:8342/stream

Curse the BBC Sounds execs.

**Update 2**: I've been playing around with my .m3u files used by Minimstreamer. Oddly enough, my existing stream (m3u) file that no longer works contains this:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1, [BBC R3] BBC Radio 3 320k
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/man...three.m3u8

That no longer works. So, I created a new .m3u file with the following:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,BBC - Radio 3 SD
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/man...three.m3u8

Using the exact same URL, this one works! I'm baffled.

**Update 3**: I've recreated the following entirely new m3u files (one per stream):

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1, Naim Jazz 44.1k
http://mscp3.live-streams.nl:8340/jazz-flac.flac

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1, Naim Classical 44.1k
http://mscp3.live-streams.nl:8250/class-flac.flac

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1, BBC Radio 4 320k
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/man...ourfm.m3u8

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1, BBC Radio 4Extra 320k
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/man...extra.m3u8

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,BBC Radio 3 320k
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/man...three.m3u8

Bizarrely, they all work. Even more head-scratching now.