legality

[Christopher Woods (CustomMade)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: get_iplayer-bounces at lists.infradead.org 
> [mailto:get_iplayer-bounces at lists.infradead.org] On Behalf Of 
> Ian Stirling
> Sent: 05 April 2011 11:11
> To: get_iplayer at lists.infradead.org
> Subject: Re: legality
> 
> On 04/05/2011 10:00 AM, Jon Davies wrote:
> 
> > Apart from just one condition (personal use terms, 3.2.2) which 
> > restates some of the requirements for having a TV licence, there's 
> > nothing I can see in the terms which draws a distinction 
> between 'on 
> > air' and 'on demand' access.  So, I conclude, that no, the BBC does 
> > not make any significant distinction of that sort.
> 
> It's not in the BBCs terms, it's in the law around TV licensing.
> Specifically (if it's not changed in the last 4 or so years), 
> you need a TV license _only_ to watch the broadcast output of 
> television broadcaster licenced under the television 
> broadcasters regulation rules.
> 
> You _do_not_ need a license to watch any other content. 
> Foreign TV you can pick up with a really big antenna, or 
> content a licenced broadcaster provides in non-realtime ways.


The Beeb and TVL (read: Capita) tend to interpret the Licensing law as
requiring a person to hold a licence if they own or operate equipment
capable of receiving a broadcast signal 'as it's being broadcast', this
includes timeshifted as-live programmes via media such as Internet
streaming, Freeview, Freesat etc (to accommodate various platforms' time
lags).

Therefore if TVL came round and you stupidly invited them into your home, if
you had an operable TV, VHS, DVR etc with a tuner block in it, you would
have to prove that it was physically incapable of receiving any BBC
television channel. Otherwise, they would require you to licence for the
appropriate period or face prosecution - and you would have to be VERY sharp
to beat them in County court, I imagine they've honed their court patter and
paperwork to a near artform these days. As the JPs will weigh up a case on
balance of probabilities (instead of outright 'beyond a shadow of a doubt')
your case has to be VERY convincing (and/or you require two sympathetic JPs)
in order to come out victorious.

Of course, you just don't let them into your house in the first place, they
have no purview or legally established precedent to allow entry to premises
uninvited. They can look through windows to see if a telly's showing BBC One
though! Curtains are a useful investment.