The RemArc license https://github.com/bbcarchdev/Remarc/raw/master/doc/2016.09.... clearly attempts to appear friendly and aimed at being understood by non-lawyers but what the license says is not nice at all. This license purports to cover software (among other things) and it is clearly non-free (and a clear illustration of how open source is not free software). That's bad enough to reject the license and all covered works in itself. But the license is worse for using unclear and rights-limiting language.

Open source and software freedom are not the same thing:

This license claims to cover many types of "content" (see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Content for why that's a bad idea) including "Technical stuff such as metadata and open-source code (please see point 7)". The Open Source Initiative started over a decade after the free software movement began and promotes a 10-point development methodology built to reject the ethical underpinning of the free software movement. The Open Source Definition is not at all the same as software freedom (the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published software). Open source advocates sometimes reject that 10-point methodology altogether and adopt whatever proprietary work is available if that work is sufficiently attractive (see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.... for more on this). The RemArc license is an example of papering over the limitations of proprietary control by using a term people think they understand.

The RemArc license is highly prejudiced against commercial and educational use. Section 7 tells us RemArc-covered works are "only for non-commercial, personal or research purposes". Using the covered work "substantially to do your job – as an employee, contractor or consultant" might require you to pay a fee not listed in this license. And that personal or research use (however that is meant to be interpreted) is further limited to "formal education purposes while you are a student or a member of staff of a school, college or university". So if you're doing your own research/education work or if you're home-schooling, you are not licensed to use the covered work. I can't say if this qualifies as "open source" as the license says, but these restrictions absolutely disqualify this license from being a free software license.

RemArc license is very unclear:

"Don't mess with our content" seems to mean let the copyright holders dictate when you must remove the work upon request. So you are being kept from keeping a copy of the work thus censoring you.

"Don’t use our content for harmful or offensive purposes" is defined using vague and undefined terms such as being "insulting", "promoting pornography" (precisely what pornography is or what 'promotes' pornography is doubly-unclear), "putting children at risk" (of what? They don't say), "anything illegal. Like using hate speech" (which, is not defined in the US and not defined in this license, and would not survive 1st Amendment scrutiny in the US if used by a state-funded institution akin to coming from the state-funded BBC). Also one is not licensed to use the work in a "harmful or offensive" way such as "Using our content for political or social campaigning purposes". Not only is that unclear it could include doing things I don't find offensive, harmful, insulting, or illegal such as educating children about software freedom.

RemArc license is referred to as a contract ("This is a contract between you and us.") and also a license (2nd line). I don't know how English law defines these terms or what the consequences of those terms are, but in American law they don't mean exactly the same thing.

It makes real a myth propagated by anti-software freedom campaigners:

"You have to [u]se the latest version of the content and, where we have it, don’t remove any tagging or tracking" so if they change something, they demand you change your work that includes theirs (presumably without notice). This implements a myth used to argue against strongly-copylefted software covered under the GNU GPL. Ironically, the GPL allows anyone with a copy of the covered code to edit out anything they don't like, so there's no obligation to pass along "tagging or tracking" nor is there any obligation to keep up with changes made in other copies of the same work. But the RemArc license requires you be a bolster for privacy-busting tactics such as tracking. Hardly a nice way to treat people!

It's remarkably restrictive:

"English law governs these terms, and only English courts can make judgments about them." Why would anyone outside this court system want to have their rights determined by English law?

It makes no sense why BBC fee payers would want to be compelled to pay to have taxpayer-funded workers to make works which are so restrictively licensed.

I suspect this license might be someone's well-meaning but poorly chosen attempt at being approachable by non-lawyers. I cringe at the thought of that just as I do when I hear non-technical people describe computer-related problems and say things that make no sense leaving me to try to guess at what they really meant ("I put the floppy disk in the hard drive and switched the monitor on but the game didn't play." which might mean they put something in their computer and only turned on the monitor but not the computer therefore no program ran).

This license and everything covered under it should be avoided.