...and argue that it is, which a private individual rarely has the resources to do.

Got to love the legal system.

To protect their interest, they are trying to enforce laws that are currently being broken. Seems reasonable to me. Hopefully, this will deter the casual downloader who isn't particularly aware of the illegality of what they are doing.

It's a slippery slope though. How long before Ryan Giggs or someone like him demands that they block Twitter to protect his super injunction?

Disappointed that BT are rolling over on this. It's the thin end of the wedge, and once they make it known that they are willing to censor one site then every special interest group and their dog will be getting court orders to silence parts of the web they don't like - well in the UK at least.

...we going to see an earthquate and tsunami in Germany to justify this fearmongering?

the BBC isn't a public body in the sense that is, say, the British Army. The Army is funded by a general, compulsory taxes on income and other trade. The BBC is funded by a licence which you only need to pay if you choose to watch (possibly time-shifted) live broadcast television

A tax doesn't have to be universal, unless you're also going to argue that the tax on cigarettes and alcohol aren't really taxes because only smokers and drinkers pay them. The licence fee is a compulsory tax on anyone who watches broadcast TV, whether or not they consume or even care about BBC services. Now I'm not saying that I don't enjoy BBC output, or even that I necessarily resent paying the licence fee, but please don't try to use weasel words and pretend it's something it isn't. It might be a special purpose tax and the money it generates might be ring fenced, but it's a tax and the BBC is a public body.

Look, we can all observe an assault undique to neuter and privatise the BBC.

We can? In case you hadn't noticed there's a recession on. Why should the BBC be exempt from making the same cost savings that all public bodies are having to make?