{"id":506,"date":"2009-06-04T17:22:07","date_gmt":"2009-06-04T17:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/04\/uk-tv-licensing\/"},"modified":"2009-06-04T17:22:07","modified_gmt":"2009-06-04T17:22:07","slug":"uk-tv-licensing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/04\/uk-tv-licensing\/","title":{"rendered":"UK TV Licensing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was going to post about this a while back didn\u2019t think it was that interesting but I haven\u2019t posted for a while and I\u2019m having a well deserved break next week so what better way to sign off than with a rant \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

If your not from the UK you may not know that in order for us to use a TV and receive broadcasts we need a TV License. The money from the license goes to the BBC who use it provide their range of services<\/p>\n

Previously the rules were simple. If you had a TV and used it to watch programmes you needed a license<\/p>\n

Nowadays there a lots of ways in which in you can consume TV programming via satellite, mobile phone, and over the Internet<\/p>\n

The rules are still simple but the wording has changed<\/p>\n

Do I need a TV Licence?<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

You will need a TV Licence if you watch or record TV programmes as they are being shown on TV. It doesn’t matter what channel you are watching, what device you are using (for example TV, computer or laptop, mobile phone or any other device) or how you are receiving them (for example via terrestrial, satellite, cable, the Internet or any other method). <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Technology such as BBC\u2019s own BBC iPlayer<\/a>   has made people ask the question \u201cdo i still need a TV license?\u201d <\/p>\n

The answer is still actually pretty simple as the quote above states<\/p>\n

If you are watching a program online that is being broadcast at the same time as on TV<\/p>\n

This means you\u2019re well within your rights to use BBC iPlayer<\/a> to watch programmes shown last week and not need a license<\/p>\n

This does raise some interesting questions though. <\/p>\n

\n

If i have a TV license and watch TV on my laptop and then go around to a friends house who doesn\u2019t have a license. What is the situation there?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I couldn\u2019t find anything on the TV licensing<\/a> website about this. I\u2019ve been told by one or two people that your own license would cover you until you plugged the laptop in. This sounds a bit odd in my opinion. Plug what in? Do you mean power? An Internet connection? What if i\u2019m using wireless and a long life battery?<\/p>\n

So why am I interested in this?<\/p>\n

We had a letter come to the office several months ago telling us we had been watching live TV online and if we persisted we\u2019d need to buy a TV license for the business<\/p>\n

As far as I\u2019m aware we\u2019re not sitting around watching TV but did our best to make everyone aware<\/p>\n

We had another letter this week saying the same thing so we called them<\/p>\n

They wouldn\u2019t tell us how <\/strong>they knew we were watching TV (which i still maintain we\u2019re not) and i can\u2019t see ISPs giving up their log information to be honest without upfront legal proof\/warrant (which is a whole chicken and egg situation!)<\/p>\n

We were told that they would stop sending the letters but they may send an officer round to confirm we don\u2019t need a license<\/p>\n

How are they going to check exactly?<\/p>\n

As i said above i can legitimately use services such as BBC iPlayer<\/a> without a TV license<\/p>\n

It then also raises the question of control as a business<\/p>\n

Using various control mechanisms we can stop users doing lots of things but how do you control something such as the BBC news site<\/a> which shows both live news broadcasts as well as old clips?<\/p>\n

We can use technology to block specific IPs, domain names, even specific content such as flash video but can how we tell the difference between live content and old content?<\/p>\n

Is it fair to just ban any site that has anything to do with BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky, etc, etc when a large chunk of the content is fine?<\/p>\n

As always opinions welcome!<\/p>\n

Other links<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.televisionlicence.info\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Do I need a TV Licence if I only watch programmes online?<\/a><\/p>\n

Will I need a TV Licence to watch programmes on BBC iPlayer?<\/a><\/p>\n

There are a LOT of sites out there with information and opinions on the TV license!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was going to post about this a while back didn\u2019t think it was that interesting but I haven\u2019t posted for a while and I\u2019m having a well deserved break next week so what better way to sign off than with a rant \ud83d\ude09 If your not from the UK you may not know that<\/p>\n

<\/span>Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[38,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","category-tv-licensing"],"yoast_head":"\nUK TV Licensing - Andy's Techie Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/04\/uk-tv-licensing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UK TV Licensing - Andy's Techie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was going to post about this a while back didn\u2019t think it was that interesting but I haven\u2019t posted for a while and I\u2019m having a well deserved break next week so what better way to sign off than with a rant \ud83d\ude09 If your not from the UK you may not know thatRead More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/04\/uk-tv-licensing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Andy's Techie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-04T17:22:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andy Parkes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Andy Parkes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/04\/uk-tv-licensing\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/04\/uk-tv-licensing\/\",\"name\":\"UK TV Licensing - Andy's Techie Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-06-04T17:22:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-06-04T17:22:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3534e8ac6b1bec765cd061feff56679d\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/04\/uk-tv-licensing\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/04\/uk-tv-licensing\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/06\/04\/uk-tv-licensing\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"UK TV Licensing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Andy's Techie Blog\",\"description\":\"Professional Geek\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3534e8ac6b1bec765cd061feff56679d\",\"name\":\"Andy Parkes\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3824cbf53df51d7ca5cf809b6ad81a157fbfff2292e36ab8666f04ddad06bfcc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3824cbf53df51d7ca5cf809b6ad81a157fbfff2292e36ab8666f04ddad06bfcc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Andy Parkes\"},\"description\":\"Andy Parkes is Technical Director at Coventry based IT support company IBIT Solutions. 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