(While the BBC has already made an iPlayer app that works on selected Nokia (NYSE: NOK) handsets, it has not yet released an app to stream iPlayer on Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch devices, although this is apparently now in the works.)

At issue are developers that use the open-source coding that underpins applications like iPlayer to feed that content into their own applications. “We know that a number of applications have been making unauthorised use of some media types and we have tightened security accordingly,” writes Ian Hunter, the managing editor of BBC Online, in a blog post.

Now “some applications that ‘deep link’ to our content may no longer work,” writes Hunter.

But it’s not been only mobile developers getting up Auntie’s nose: IPTV company IP Vision in December got barred from building its own implementation of iPlayer for its Fetch TV set-top box.

For downloads, the BBC uses digital rights management systems such as Windows Media, Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE), and OMA. For streaming, it uses SSL, RTMP, RTSP, HTTP.

“If an application becomes broken, people will be able to find alternatives which are legal and that we support. BBC iPlayer is already available on many, many devices and platforms which are legal and supported and in the coming year we will be adding as many new ones as we can.”