devash dun-wrote:

1. If you do not watch live television as it is being broadcast i.e. if you don’t watch TV through an aerial or satellite dish, or live on the internet, then you don’t need a TV license. End of.

2. If you watch iPlayer catchup, you now DO need a TV licence. Any other catchup TV services are not covered. As long as you do not use iPlayer, then you don’t need a license.

I personally only broadcast very locally on a single channel, much like the BBC I believe others should pay for this service, preferrably by direct debit.

If you do not watch live television as it is being broadcast i.e. if you don’t watch TV through an aerial or satellite dish, or live on the internet, then you don’t need a TV license. End of.

That website I linked to suggests you need a license if you record a live broadcast (and presumably watch it later).

Correct.

If you do not watch live television as it is being broadcast i.e. if you don’t watch TV through an aerial or satellite dish, or live on the internet, then you don’t need a TV license. End of.

That website I linked to suggests you need a license if you record a live broadcast (and presumably watch it later).

That’s right, he should of said “watch or record”.

I’m amazed at people on this thread letting inspectors in their houses!

I ignore all the letters though I do actually read them as I live in Scotland. However since they all are just addressed to Legal Occupier how are they going to take me to court anyway?

My wife is a little annoyed we are missing Poldark since the iPlayer law changed!

Funnily enough, had a letter this morning. It states (in big red letters)…

“Your address has been scheduled for a vis by an Enforcement Officer”

I like the way they add capital letters to the enforcement officer, makes them sound very grand, and scary!

It also states that the Officer (capital again, or should that be capita) is from the Plymouth Enforcement Division. Quaking in my boots.

The kettle is on, I’ll offer them tea in the garden while we gaze through the window at my “telly” on the wall. Might even set it up a DVD of some BBC show just for effect.

Trouble is Jane Powell (Enforcement Manager, Plymouth) has said all this before, many times, and nobody ever comes to visit 🙁

I’ve had two visits but sadly I wasn’t home for either of them.

siwhite – Member
Alcopop – a donation to the TV licencing company is requested if you watch BBC content – whether live or on-demand.

I’ve fixed some inaccuracies in the above statement.

I’m amazed at people on this thread letting inspectors in their houses!

Once upon a time (over a decade ago) I let one in to our shared flat to check nothing was hooked up after declaring happily that yes, I did have a TV then just as he thought he was due a tasty carrot, beat him with the stick of truth that said it was only used for my consoles. Satisfied, off he sodded never to darken our doorstep again.

It used to work.

Fair enough – but are they not required to have some evidence in order to submit the case? Are they dishonest enough to submit a case without any evidence that an offence has been committed (and isn’t that fraudulent/perjury if you subsequently challenge it, whether or not it’s possible to get off the fine)? There seems to be something a bit wrong with the law if that is the case.

I’m not clear what evidence they lead in an English Magistrates court when the accused doesn’t appear. Certainly there will be no one to test that evidence, and so it will largely be at face value.

There surely has to be some evidence to present to the magistrates of the offence being committed otherwise they would throw the case out. They would have to commit perjury in order to do so – I don’t think I’d be prepared to do that as part of my job (and if there was any evidence of a corporate culture of doing so, that would surely come out following a prosecution based upon made up evidence).

The fact there are a large number of successful prosecutions suggests to me that ignore, refuse entry and say nothing is not a fool-proof tactic. Of course some [all?] of those people are breaking the law, but its surprising if having ignored all the correspondence they’ve all caved when the inspector arrives and admitted it.

As others have explained people basically incriminate themselves – either by letting the inspector in, or by making admissions they don’t necessarily realise they’re making. I did a bit of a search on this, and it appears one tactic is to get the criminal resident to buy a TV licence from the inspector, which is taken as an admission of guilt. A report I found on TV licence cases at a magistrates court everybody had admitted guilt in some way.

I should point out that I’m looking at this from the perspective of getting all the threatening letters despite not having a working TV – recently sold my mum’s house after it had been unoccupied for a couple of years and had piles of them, from the basic checking if a licence was needed, through those warning of visits like UrbanHiker’s to some threatening court action (of those I opened, most were binned unopened). I’ve no idea if an inspector ever visited, was only there once a month or so.

Just go on the TV Licencing website and you can fill in a form declaring you don’t use the service.

After that, no hassle.

Just go on the TV Licencing website and you can fill in a form declaring you don’t use the service.

After that, no hassle.

The hassle starts again sooner or later, plus they don’t ask nicey 😉

Also you have to tell them your name and email address to do that. I don’t want to help them gather information on me.

It’s been a while since I’ve filled in the form on-line, but if memory serves they even ask for your date of birth!

Binning the letters wasn’t really any hassle.

Jane in Plymouth writes to me as well. We should invite her to a meet.

Every month I get a reminder which seems to me to be threatening in tone and quite unpleasant. After about two years of this a pleasant yong chap rang my doorbell, introduced himself, and wanted to be invited in. I checked his ID and declined. We talked a little, he asked to be allowed to look through my front room window, I declined. He drove away. It’s a job, it keeps him off the streets.

The letters resumed.

One new twist is that The BBC had the law changed so they can listen in to your router signal. They have done something to BBC data so it’s recognisable by their new detectors. Thus they can catch you downloading from Iplayer. I read that the snooping on your stuff would have been illegal before.

Just go on the TV Licencing website and you can fill in a form declaring you don’t use the service.

After that, no hassle.

The hassle starts again sooner or later

Usually sooner.

One new twist is that The BBC had the law changed so they can listen in to your router signal. They have done something to BBC data so it’s recognisable by their new detectors. Thus they can catch you downloading from Iplayer. I read that the snooping on your stuff would have been illegal before.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/06/bbc_detector_van_wi_fi_iplayer/

One new twist is that The BBC had the law changed so they can listen in to your router signal. They have done something to BBC data so it’s recognisable by their new detectors. Thus they can catch you downloading from Iplayer. I read that the snooping on your stuff would have been illegal before.

I’d love to see a credible source for that as I very much doubt it’s true (or for that matter, possible). If there were any truth to it, they’d surely get the data in bulk directly from the ISPs rather than fannying about with individual routers.

It’s entirely plausible that the TV Licensing Authority want you to believe that, however. It’s basically the same myth as detector vans.

Also “The licence fee is not a payment for BBC services (or any other television service), although licence fee revenue is used to fund the BBC”. [/I]

and SC4 and (a bit of) Channel 4

One new twist is that The BBC had the law changed so they can listen in to your router signal. They have done something to BBC data so it’s recognisable by their new detectors. Thus they can catch you downloading from Iplayer. I read that the snooping on your stuff would have been illegal before.

[citation needed]

@Urban yes I had tons of those red letters “visit scheduled” but as the property was empty most of the time I hope the whole thing was a waste of their time. As I said I was in once and the guy bounded upstairs enthusiastically before seeing a room with no TV. He asked why I hadn’t registered the property that way and I said as it’s not compulsory to do so 🙂

One new twist is that The BBC had the law changed so they can listen in to your router signal. They have done something to BBC data so it’s recognisable by their new detectors. Thus they can catch you downloading from Iplayer. I read that the snooping on your stuff would have been illegal before.

Yeah, yeah, definitely, that’s definitely what they do. Definitely.

The only way to do that would be to hack the wifi password on your router, aside from being very labour intensive I’m pretty sure is illegal as it would give them access to all your private network traffic and devices… and how would they know which house or person a router belongs to? I can pick up about 5 private neighbours networks from my house

It’s lucky for the BBC that no-one has a password on their Wifi. That would really scupper them.

The only way to do that would be to hack the wifi password on your router,

It’s far from the only way.

As a random example: If, as claimed, the iPlayer has some sort of unique signature in its datastream, it’s plausible (though non-trivial) that this could be detected by some sort of EM sensor near the telephone wire.

But really, we’re into tinfoil hat territory here.

Might have to crack out kali linux tonight and snoop some packets.
Did have a theory that the source and destination MAC addresses must be in the clear even in encrypted packets, and since MAC address ranges have some kind of register, if lots of traffic is flowing to those registered as TVs then you have one small subset of potential cheaters to investigate further.
It wouldn’t pick out anyone using iPlayer apps or websites on phones, PCs, etc. but could pick out those with a TV and the app in that. Similarly people playing youtube or something directly on that TV could come up as a false positive.

either way, it’s bullshine. good luck to them if they want to try to snoop my LAN for iPlayer packets 😉
I’ll just carry on collecting the DVB signal overspill with a parabolic antenna before those waves hit my apartment 😉

Another truly STW thread. Awesome guys.

I knew I’d read it somewhere. Apologies to all for having trusted the MSM.

From early next year, a detailed login will be required to watch iplayer, so I guess they’ll know then when you’re watching.

Just to be sure, you don’t need a license to listen to BBC radio and radio iPlayer?

Just to be sure, you don’t need a license to listen to BBC radio and radio iPlayer?

Nope.

From early next year, a detailed login will be required to watch iplayer, so I guess they’ll know then when you’re watching.

Just had a glance at the top 40 programmes, looks like Eastenders, The Apprentice and The Great British Bake Off and all their variants make up half of the list. They can keep it and I’ll keep my £145 a year.

Sorry, yeah, watch and/or record.

The last time I recorded a TV programme was back in the age of VHS, so I forgot this was possible. 😀