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TV detector van

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Re: TV detector van

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix and Amazon prime are not TV and don't require a TV licence. https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ104 But indeed, watching any channel on TV (not just the BBC) requires a licence.

I think they make it incredibly clear in their message though: If you’re watching live TV, you need to be covered by a TV Licence: a. if you’re watching on TV or on an online TV service b. for all channels, not just the BBC c. ...

Netflix and amazon are not considered live TV.

iPlayer isn't either, but they've recently put in an exception for that.

Re: TV detector van

#132
post #7

I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn't have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory. They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn't have a licence you'd be caught. I did some research at the time, and it seemed that evidence from a…

The ads were hugely dystopian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw I am an ex-pat and as an adult I am have become quite disillusioned with the UK and glad to have gotten out a decade ago. I miss nothing about England except my friends, and I'd feel sorry for them, but they all seem mostly happy with life. Paying a license to have a TV (and it's assumed you must watch TV), opt in porn on the internet, CCTV ev…

I don't know where you moved to, but is the US anything admirable lately? Guess I should cross the UK off the list of places to flee to.

Re: TV detector van

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like typical legal stances on breathalyzers, speed cameras and red light cameras.

A bad breathalyzer can be challenged in court as "not scientifically reliable". https://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/08/22/ju...

Around here they are just used as part of a first step I think: if you fail it you'll be asked to go for a alcohol blood test.

Re: TV detector van

#134
post #43

You might think these vans were crazy then, what's more crazy today is how they continue to force their opt-out licensing upon everyone like it's still 1946 and they are the only broadcasters in town. If you live in the UK and own a TV you must pay the BBC whether you want the BBC or not! I'm one of the minority who don't own a TV in the UK and even then they make it their business to inform me every two years about…

> "If you live in the UK and own a TV you must pay the BBC whether you want the BBC or not!" This isn't true.

> You need a TV Licence to watch or record live TV, no matter where it is broadcast or distributed from. This includes satellite or online streamed programmes from outside the UK or Channel Islands, such as sporting events and foreign shows.

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ16

> If you’re watching live TV, you need to be covered by a TV Licence: [...] for all channels, not just the BBC

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ95

In the UK you pay the BBC for not watching the BBC.

Re: TV detector van

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had a coin-operated TV...? At home...? Did someone come regularly to collect the coins? I'm genuinely fascinated by this.

I also remember the coin operated tellys. Yes, every 6 months or there abouts the coiny-telly man would come about to collect the coins. It was a real hassle, as you had to be at your flat all that day. Otherwise, the coiny-telly man would just pass you up. Thing was, the little bin that the coins fell into would fill up every 9 months or so. So, if the coiny-telly man passed you up, you'd have to ration when you cou…

I honestly can't tell if this is satire or not.

Re: TV detector van

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have to laugh at all the Americans saying this is crazy or nonsensical when it's legal to carry guns in much of your country :-D Not making the connection here, care to elaborate?

The TV license is an admittedly odd way of funding a state broadcaster, but it works well enough that nobody has bothered to change it. One mass shooting on the scale of El Paso was enough to prompt a systematic overhaul of British firearms legislation; we just can't understand how so many American citizens can comfortably reconcile your extraordinarily high rate of gun violence with your exceptionally lax gun regula…

[deleted]

Re: TV detector van

#137
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Does this put the BBC at risk of violating anti-peeping-Tom legislation?" Er, you'd have to be more specific. I'm not familiar with that legislation.

Sexual Offences Act 2003, S67 and S68: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/67

IANAL, but most of that law looks to me like spying is only an offence if done with sexual intent; and while the rest of that law might make it an offence if the occupants are nude, that depends if other commenters here are correct to claim the detector is only one pixel (one pixel alone can’t reasonably be considered “a picture” of intimate parts).

Re: TV detector van

#138

Have to laugh at all the Americans saying this is crazy or nonsensical when it's legal to carry guns in much of your country :-D That aside, lest anyone think TV detector vans are all over the place, in my almost 40 years of living in the UK I've never seen or had interactions with one. They may as well be the Loch Ness monster for how mythical they are.

[deleted]

Re: TV detector van

#139
post #7

I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn't have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory. They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn't have a licence you'd be caught. I did some research at the time, and it seemed that evidence from a…

[deleted]

Re: TV detector van

#140
post #7

I lived in a flat in England in the early 2000s which kept getting letters from the BBC saying we didn't have a TV licence. The letters were sometimes more threatening for a period, then sometimes more reconciliatory. They were also running TV adverts at the time claiming they had detector vans about, and if you didn't have a licence you'd be caught. I did some research at the time, and it seemed that evidence from a…

The ads were hugely dystopian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw I am an ex-pat and as an adult I am have become quite disillusioned with the UK and glad to have gotten out a decade ago. I miss nothing about England except my friends, and I'd feel sorry for them, but they all seem mostly happy with life. Paying a license to have a TV (and it's assumed you must watch TV), opt in porn on the internet, CCTV ev…

Where did you move to?
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