Chance is a dicer
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Are your staff watching TV at work?
THE BBC IS THE ENVY OF THE WORLD, not least because the rest of the world doesn't have to pay for it. Every single home in the UK which is capable of receiving TV signals must, by law, pay an annual licence fee of £142.50 into the broadcaster's coffers.
For some it is a bone of contention, but anyone who has had to endure the mind-numbing banality of commercial television in the USA would happily pay three times that much not to have their favourite film or soap interrupted by adverts for haemorrhoid cream every thirty seconds.
The BBC is a fantastic broadcaster spreading comfort, education and a hankering for British-style democracy throughout the world. The BBC World Service is, to some, the only available link to the 21st Century which is to be applauded.
In the past decade, television has crept out of its traditional lair in the corner of the living room, and permeated its way into every corner of our lives. Every pub, club and fitness centre on the planet offers multi-channel banks of flatscreen sedation to its paying customers. Every major train station and airport in the free world bathes its flustered and weary travellers in the soporific glow of television's mind-numbing gaze. And now pretty much anyone with a mobile phone can get their Strictly Come Dancing fix wherever they may be.
Catch-up services like BBC Iplayer, and 4 On Demand allow viewers to watch streaming recordings of programmes which have previously been transmitted, but services like Elgato's Eye-TV and Slingbox can beam live broadcasts to a suitably equipped handset, which could force some fundamental changes to the way in which we all pay for TV.
For example, if you take your Iphone into work and decide to watch the News at One in your lunch break (we know you wouldn't secretly watch Loose Women when you are supposed to be working after all) who is liable for the TV licensing fee?
We asked Jon Shaw from the TV licensing authority to clarify the situation. "For the vast majority of businesses, the law is very simple," he told us. "If anyone at your business watches or records TV programmes as they are being broadcast, the premises will need to be covered by a valid TV Licence. This is the case no matter which channel you’re watching, the device you’re using or how you receive the programmes."
But things become more convoluted the deeper you dig. If someone on your premises watches TV on a device powered solely by its own internal batteries, such as a mobile phone or laptop, there are a few things you need to be aware of. "If the mobile phone or laptop is supplied and used for work purposes, then it would need to be covered by a licence held by the business," continues Shaw. "Someone using a personal device, however, would need to be covered by a licence at their home address."
Which is all well and good until your battery starts to give up the ghost. Things start to get a bit more convoluted once you start getting out the charger and heading for the mains socket. "If your device is plugged in and powered by the mains, in the eyes of the law, this is effectively 'installing' the device. In this case, regardless of whether it is supplied by the business or not, it must be covered by a licence at the address where it is plugged in", Shaw told us.
And using your mobile TV whilst mobile is also a different matter. If you are on a train, aeroplane or boat and plugged your mobile phone or laptop in to catch a TV programme as it was being broadcast, your business licence would cover you if used it for work purposes, and your home licence would cover you if not. Hang on a cotton-pickin' minute! I thought he said this was simple!
The men in the detector vans have been accused of targeting businesses more heavily than ever in recent months, but Shaw insists that nothing has changed in the way the organisation operates. But the publicly-funded body is being a bit too secretive about 'our' data for the INQ's liking.
"We don't release separate figures for business and residential addresses," Shaw told us, "and we are not targeting unlicensed business addresses any more than we target unlicensed residential addresses. Our duty is to enforce the law and with technological advances meaning more businesses may require a licence, we are stepping up our efforts to ensure businesses are aware of their legal responsibilities."
So, who exactly is responsible if an employee takes it upon himself to watch unlicensed TV at work? Would Joe Paycheck have to cough up the substantial fine or would Mr Corporate Fatcat find a slight dent in his enormous bonus?
"If we caught someone in a workplace using TV equipment without a TV Licence, the normal course would be to seek to prosecute the business, although it is also possible for the employee to be prosecuted in certain circumstances," Shaw told us."
Ah... that's nice and clear then. Perhaps you'd like to expand? "Liability would rest with the owner of an unincorporated business or the company itself if incorporated. If a director is found to be complicit then they may be prosecuted in addition to the company." Right. So everyone and anyone can be prosecuted and fined, depending on the circumstances. Oh my giddy aunt… this was supposed to make things clearer. Now we're really confused!
Something else which we find confusing and irksome is being asked to provide personal information by the spotty irk behind the counter in Curry's every time we buy a new telly. We have in the past refused to provide such information on the grounds that said slack-jawed salesperson could not give a good reason why we would want to do such a thing, and have still walked out of the door with the goods unchallenged.
We asked Shaw who gathers the information, what it is used for, and who is responsible for collecting it? "Under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1967," he told us, "dealers who provide TV equipment for sale or hire are legally obliged to notify TV Licensing of customers' names and the address where the equipment is to be installed. Failure to do so within 28 days of sale could result in prosecution and a financial penalty of up to £1,000.
"The information provided is fed into TV Licensing's database of over 30 million addresses so that we can identify people who have purchased television receiving equipment but don't have a TV Licence. The database lies at the heart of our licensing operation and is used for the sole purpose of TV Licensing. Our database is confidential and used for TV Licensing purposes only. None of the data is released to third parties for any sales or marketing activity."
Currently the notification process is only applied to TV sets. So anyone buying a TV card or USB widget for their computer, or a computer already equipped with a TV tuner, gets away without having to be included on the Big Brother database. Surely that's a situation which will have to change in the near future.
Not according to Simon Oliver from the Department of Media Culture and Sport: "We are, of course, aware of technological developments and the evolution of the way people watch TV, but there are no current plans to amend TV licensing legislation to take account of this," he told us. "As 98 per cent of UK households already have TV sets and estimated licence fee evasion is very low, the vast majority of people watching TV on computers or mobiles will be covered by the TV Licence they already have."
But as we've seen, that doesn't cover UK businesses, of which there are estimated to be 4.7 million. Multiply that number by £142.50 and the Beeb could be in for a nearly £670 million windfall.
Those detector vans are going to be really busy! µ
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I thought it was a bit odd that PC world would be asking for an address "for the guarantee" when I bought a Squeezebox, but oddly enough it just didn't click that they might have thought it was a TV receiver. What next, clock radios?
At least Currys include them. I bought a usb dongle from them and returned it a few days later. A month later I duly recieved a letter from the BBC demanding money. Incidently I don't have a tv.
"What I don't get about this whole thing is why the BBC is not forced to make money like any other business."
Is there alot of things you "don't get", I presume there must be!
"If the BBC was actually run like a business it would be forced into actually producing a product that people really want as apposed to producing whatever crap they feel like."
And thus produce exactly the same programming as ITV, lots of X-Factor, lots of Big Brother, lots of GMTV and Jeremy Kyle.
Anything that involves engaging your brain and doesn't involve buying products is gone.
Does that clear it up for you?
By the way, in Germany every household that potentially is capable of receiving TV or Radio either terrestrial, satellite or whatever - has to pay a fee of about 20 Euros monthly for public German TV stations like ARD, ZDF and all public local providers.
Regardless of watching TV or not - you have to pay, even if there is only a defective antique CRT on your roof chamber...
So everyone outside the German border can have this for free.
On the contrary no German resident may receive other European TV stations for free, no Danish, no Swedish, no Dutch, no Swiss, no French, no Austrian, no Spanish - that's Europe in the medi(a)eval...
Come on INQ, even the slightest bit of research about this would tell you that, for battery operated equipment, the owner of the equipment is only required to have a license at their home address.
This means if they do watch tv on their portable iphone whatever devices at work, as thats a battery operated portable device its licensing is linked to the home address of the owner.
Your researchers are CRAP... they didn't know or bother to find this out before writing this article....
This article is way below par on quality... its just brimming with twoddle...
The opening line "every address capable of receiving a TV license has to ..." is completely wrong.
The TV license is actually a license to operate the receiver for the purposes of watching transmitted content.
What this actually means that if you have a TV set and only watch DVDs or use it for a computer and do not watch off air broadcasts or streaming equivalents of off air broadcasts then you are not required to have a license.
There has been a test case where the BBC famously lost a case trying to get license money from someone using a TV for a home computer monitor. The BBC tried and lost, and were even denied an appeal.
The easiest way to stop the BBC license thought police, is simply not to let the into you premises. You don't have to if they don't have a search warrant and magistrates are in the habit of granting search warrants to the th eBBC license police, so remember, no discussion on the doorstep with them, and tell them to get a warrant if they want to come in...
end of story.
As if anyone is going to buy a license for work because someone at work streams tv content on their desktop pc, DREAM ON...
This is just another gang of opportunistic con-men, so treat them as such, don't pay, don't allow access, don't talk with them, don't sign anything, just tell them to go away, if they don't, consider calling the Police on them for trespassing, harassment, and costs!
Oh, anyone who has even a smidgen of sympathy for the BBC should look at just how blatantly they have breached the conditions of their Royal Charter e.g. by accepting loads of EU political money!
Freeman,
Cheers!
http://www.tpuc.org/
The trouble is most people are too naive, trusting, cowardly, or plain stupid, to comprehend the mind blowing truth of just how much they have been hoodwinked and lied to, so don't realise that their sovereignty is theirs, not the plaything of status obsessed lairs.
A TV isn't called an idiot box for nothing.
I get this, am already rejecting the unlawful TV Licensing fee, the demands are funny now, I'll go further as I see confirmation of results, and have time to work at this.
Whats wrong with genitals?
Our family can think of nothing more pleasant than sitting down with a nice cup of tea and some genitals.
Well worth the GBP 142.50 (~USD 226) per year!
I live in the USA, and I've noticed that BBC tv contains foul language, and can show men and women's genitals. Nice family tv.
As explained, a home TV licence doesn't cover you watching live TV on workplace equipment. The workplace, the employer, would need to buy a separate licence.
Alternatively, software is routinely used to limit Internet access to business purposes only. Including blocking of TV is a no-brainer. But probably not strictly necessary if there is a formal workplace policy of not allowing TV reception on computers - however, if you declare that policy but you tolerate it in practice, I expect that wouldn't stick.
I assume the business premises licence is likely to be over £142. It is for hotels.
BBC-owned programmes sold to other networks overseas raise money for the BBC, but BBC stations are paid for by either the British licence holders or the British government and taxpayer, so don't expect to see anything there other than either national propaganda or things that we don't want to miss when we're on holiday in your country. It isn't for you, it's for us.
What if you plug your device in at work to charge but you unplug it while viewing... I don't think the law was framed for rechargeable devices.
TV Licensing (along with their Capita Group PLC boot-boys) are merely the terrorist wing of the BBC. Sinn Fein/IRA are supposed to have decomissioned, why are the BBC stepping-up their "armed struggle"?
Haven't got one. Don't know many people who do. It's going to be a generational thing. Going the way of the sheet music industry. Wish the industry would accept the fact without screaming "it's not fair give us all your money like you used to" Music industry is going the same way.
It's time to get off your complacent asses and create industries relevant to today.
Just to inform the unaware, Taxes, whether it council/road/tv etc etc DO NOT HAVE TO BE PAID UNLESS YOU AGREE! SAME IN THE USA! I promise you i am not mad and this is probably the most important thing you will read all your life! HONESTLY!
I recommend researching this site very well and LEARN COMMON LAW!
http://www.tpuc.org/
In a more than likely quiet long nutshell for the lacking in ability to research and the plain lazy, Heres a not so short description of reasons why!
The UK went bankrupt in 1865 which it as been in ever since. It declared bankruptcy again in the 1920's which is the time they brought in the National insurance. and crucially, SOLD ALL THE GOLD RESERVE! Same as the US did in the 1930's, making the printed money worthless, as there is nothing of value backing the currency within both countries! What happens if you take a £20/$20 not to the bank of england or the federal bank respectively? Noting the the Federal Reserve is a PRIVATE company that BORROWS money to the US government at AN INTEREST! How can they pay back interest when there isn't enough in the system to pay the interest? YOU CAN'T! So enforcing the population as slaves to the system in an unattainable goal! All they will do is give you a new note! Before the sale of all the gold, It said, 'redeemable in GOLD'. Now it only as the value of the amount thats in the system, and they seem to print money off excessively making each note even less value even if there was a gold reserve! Wonder why there begging for phones/gold of late off you!!! National Insurance in the UK was brought in to cover the people of the country if they ever needed money for bills,food,clothing etc etc and couldn't afford. This means NI can be used to pay bills such as water/electric/sky/broadband. Really i hear you say? YES! But thats just the beginning. Due to the bankruptcy of 1865, no COMMON LAW (LAW of the land) as been able to be passed! What does this mean? All so called 'laws' created since then are statutes and acts. These are NOT LAW and only applicable if you AGREE TO THEM VERBALLY OR BY SIGNING YOUR NAME to which police 'officers' are trained. Not there fault, they think there doing right in a police state! No longer do police 'men and women' exist to serve and protect, WHICH IS THERE JOB! Police officers now which protect the people at the top! Police/courts etc are all PRIVATE COMPANIES which have to make money! Yes, thats right, they are CORPORATIONS and NOT public services. What does this mean? Well what do you see today, Taxes for just about everything to make £££ for the people at the top, the puppet masters (Bilderberg Group:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group - Thats a different chapter!). Police officers enforce this!
So, Tax, in any form is up to you whether you want to pay! There is no LAW that says you have to pay it. UK or USA. Many IRS Agents in the US have left there jobs and stopped paying there taxes after they looked into the system to find there is nothing making them pay it! But this is just a taste of the unbelievable truth.
Statutes have to have a bond on them to stand up in court, meaning the creator has to be there if you request and put his bond on the line. Problem being there as not been one created for over 50 years, these people are DEAD! or on there last legs.....
60% of the population as to VOTE YES for a law to be passed in these times, Which NEVER happens, And same with employing police which also does not happen. A judge as to take an oath, Which is never done! What does this mean. Well, basically, every police office/man/woman/judge are NOT LAWFULLY what they say they are. They have NO power.
The more you dig, the more you find out but if your interested, DO your research and you will find unbelievable things, to the point where you will find this country is lawless! It truly is a free country if you know 'lawless' language and the right stuff.
You will get hassled for a bit and it will cause problems but after a bit they realize they have no power and will leave you alone for good cause they know they have no power! Meanwhile you can sue them BY LAW for entering your property without permission/Loss of earning or property and pretty much anything that infringes on you making a loss! Common law is pretty simple, Don't cause loss or harm to anyone! Thats pretty much it!
Birth certificate is signing your new born child over to the government and BRANDING IT! By this i mean Mr/Miss XXXX XXXXXXXXX(whatever) is a persona, and not you. You 'wear' it like you do a coat. Your name is your GIVEN name, and you have a FAMILY name. No one is Mr/Mrs/Miss etc, its false! No one as first and last name, Thats part of the persona. REMEMBER, GIVEN NAME, FAMILY NAME! Never agree to be your persona cause then you are agreeing to statutes and acts! You see, were lied to from the day were born, how are we meant to know? We seem to have the attitude that we know everything these days when we don't even know whats going on in front of our eyes!
AND DONT USE A LAWYER! The literal translation is representative of an imbecile! Are you an imbecile?
I've tried to cover a lot here without reference or nothing but if you really want to know whats going on, I'd start researching and looking into these things, The more people that have there eyes open, the faster we could move forward back on track and get rid of the Rockerfellows of this world!
There was many warnings of this back in 1800's with central banks and everything, But they were soon 'neutralized', if you get my drift!!!
Surely they can scrap this idea and go back to taxing windows?
Gotta love the PR picture. The man appears to have several bits of equipment, guess which ones works... Yes, the folder of addresses printed on bits of A4!
The plastic hotdog with the headphones might as well be a sleeping compartment for his pet hamster for all they do. Same goes for the van.
It is possible to detect a cathode ray tube from the radio waves it emits, that's easy. However how do you tell that CRT is a TV, computer monitor or closed circuit TV?
Ah... That's tricky. It is possible to tune into these signals, and in some cases reconstruct a very crude image from it. However that is easily overloaded by multiple signals sources, in say for example, a business environment.
Now here's the big problem.
Nobody buys CRT monitors or TVs anymore. It's all LCD flatscreens, and guess what, they don't generate huge electromagnetic emissions! They're very nice and green, none of this high voltage stuff, your laptop wouldn't last 10 minutes if it was powering a CRT style monitor (and of course you'd put your back out).
So what is the most effective big of equipment the man in the PR shot has? well it's a combination of two. The A4 list of addresses without a licence. Cross referenced with the address of people who have bought TVs (you did know this gets reported back didn't you?), and his eye-balls. Go stand out in your street at night and see if you can spot who is watching TV in their front room from the flickering glow... See, easy, who needs blue sky technology.
What I don't get about this whole thing is why the BBC is not forced to make money like any other business. Legistlating fees for something that the user may, or may not use seems counter productive. Just because you own a TV does not mean you are watching the BBC yet you are still forced to pay for it. If the BBC was actually run like a business it would be forced into actually producing a product that people really want as apposed to producing whatever crap they feel like. And charge a real usage fee.
I live in Canada and have a satellite system for my TV that I happily pay around $60 a month. (Over 300 channels including HDTV) And that is my choice. Included in the package is BBC Canada (that the Brits are paying for!!!) and I never watch it because it is truly crap.
As for commercials, that's what a PVR is for! Gotta love the 'Skip Forward' button!!
gazz
You can have a television in your house, you can watch videos. If you watch anything broadcast, you're liable. Also, legally you can decline letting them inspect your house. The most they can do if they are checking is to send letter after letter after letter explaining how you will be fined, jailed, executed etc for not paying. Pretty crap. And I had to hand over my address for one of my computer screens because it's a television too. I like playstation and computer at the same time. If you really are paranoid, give money to friend, get them to give it to you if they have license. Or cash and make it up.
In Whitehall the BBC was, I gather, traditionally called "Buggerers Broadcasting Communism". But as hoohoo et al above says, it's not as left wing as all that.
And Top Gear (do they actually broadcast anything else? I wouldn't know...) ain't left wing at all. Not a bit. Rather the opposite some might say. Perhaps refreshingly so, a gentle counterweight to a perceived softie leftie tendancy, others might add.
My employer just took delivery of a load (hundreds) of monitors that can receive Telly. Not sure they'd thought of the licensing thing... It would be cheaper to give them away and buy new ones without. I wonder if I can pick up one or two of them...
@Simon - TV detection does work, piece of piss in fact, not even expensive. I agree with the letters thing though. I used to have a black and white (for any Americans reading - b&w licenses are much cheaper, are still on the books, though largely irrelevant today). The letters questioning whether this was actually true and "had I actually got a colour telly?" were definitely persistant and rude.
As for other right wing US perceptions about socialist Europe, I prefer our mild Government intervention over your expensive lawyers anyday, especially when it comes to sale of dodgy goods by fruit themed toy makers from abroad.
"So, let me get this right. If your residence is capable of receiving signals, you have to pay the BBC tax, even if you don't actually watch them."
No, even if you have a TV you don't need a TV licence. You can use a TV without a TV licence if it's only being used for say a games console or DVD player.
I guess though if you are using said games console to pick up TV (PS3 for instance with the TV box) or something like Sky Player on the XBOX 360 or iPlayer on the Wii or PS3 then you need a TV licence.
I'm starting to think, maybe small businesses could be targeted with a iPlayer/4OD/Hulu etc blocking device.
Rob
... they keep themselves up with the money they get for comercials.
Sure there's cable TV here... but only 20% of population pay for it down here.
The others 80% eighter can't pay or simply can't bother anybit more for television.
is it ok to assume that most/all of the employees had already paid tv fee for their home tv sets? do they have to pay for every tv set in their household? if they'd already paid once and license covers every tv set at home they'd like to use to watch bbc i see no reason to charge business for their tv usage (business has already paid in lost productivity and net bandwidth). would employee bringing his/her own portable tv made the whole whole thing ok from the taxman point of view?
"extremely leftist"
"Marxist totalitarian state"
Have you considered, Rich, that much of the USA has swung so far to the right, and in such a dogmatic manner, that what used to be the centre is viewed by them as left?
Extremely left is the PRC during the 1960's, or Cambodia in much of the 1970's. What you far right wingers call extremely left is nothing more than reasonable people who are not suck in paranoia - who are capable of thinking freely about things.
You lot on the far right, however, do exhibit most of the characteristics of extreme politics: denigration of any one who disagrees with you; contempt for debate and an inability to engage in reasoned discussion with people who do not share your views; belittling of opponents; automatic labeling of anyone not sharing your views as heretic, ie 'left'; disregard for objective facts and data but rather an insistence that the world must meet your preconceptions.
We know where that kind of thinking got the Germans in the 30's and 40's, the Italian in the same era, the Rwandans in the 90's. Why do you ppl now import the same foolishness into the USA? It will likely end in disaster.
lol at above.
I love the way Americans always have to associate everything in life with a terrifying political agenda.
The BBC is shit, but its not a evil leftist undemocratic evil communist hate machine. Seriously America... calm the fuck down.
"So, let me get this right. If your residence is capable of receiving signals, you have to pay the BBC tax, even if you don't actually watch them."
No, you don't have to pay the fee just because your residence is located in the same electromagnetic universe as the transmitter. You only have to pay if your residence has equipment within it that receive, decode and display live broadcasts.
Gosh dumb.
So, let me get this right. If your residence is capable of receiving signals, you have to pay the BBC tax, even if you don't actually watch them.
And I've seen the BBC here in the U.S. Believe me, it's nothing to write home about. Extremely leftist, like U.S. 'public' TV and radio. Staffed by people who believe the rest of us 'owe' them for sharing their questionable talent with us.
Sounds very democratic to me.
British-style democracy would be called Marxist totalitarian state anywhere else on the planet. Even the DPRK.
Those detector vans you speak of are empty fyi. They are just a visual deterrent.
They "detect" that your watching TV by illegally peering in your front window or looking for glowing lights behind your curtains.
Its all bullshit. http://www.bbctvlicence.com/Detector%20vans.htm
I've had several of their "agents" deceitfully try to gain illegal access to my premises on the premise that he had detected a Tv using their equipment.
...oh and don't get me started on the harassment and threatening letters...