Tv Licence Inspector On The Iom

[craggy_steve]

Heavens Barrie what were you doing posting before 05:30 on NYD? Or did the party go on that long?

 

Anyway, in the words of TV Licensing "You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it's being broadcast." - which is correct, TVL used to say something different that was wrong but thanks to public pressure they are (a bit) more honest these days. Anyway, this simplistic rendering is the best and officially accepted interpretation of a very crappy and incompetently drafted piece of law (Part 4 of the Communications Act 2003).

 

If you have a means of receiving TV as it is broadcast for the purpose of watching or recording TV as it is broadcast, or if you use it for watching or recording TV as it is broadcast even though that is not its purpose, then you need a license. Otherwise you don't. It is the purpose or act of watching or recording that is material, not the equipment. That said, if you have a TV (a mechanism whose primary purpose is receiving TV broadcasts) which is installed and capable the courts will presume that your having it is evidence of the purpose or the act even if you don't use it - why else would you have it?

 

I am told that the BBC News app for iOS & Android has the ability to show 'live' BBC news broadcasts, so presumably the app is a TV receiver - dunno if this has been tested in court yet but if not then it surely will be one day.

[The Border Terrier]

That said, if you have a TV (a mechanism whose primary purpose is receiving TV broadcasts) which is installed and capable the courts will presume that your having it is evidence of the purpose or the act even if you don't use it - why else would you have it?

 

Why else? Maybe to add a flower arrangement?

 

Come come now...Courts can't presume can they? Is proof no longer required?

 

If I have a gun which is 'installed and capable' i.e. easily to hand and loaded, is it to shoot vermin (legal), or to shoot the mother-in-law?

 

So if you have a gun, the Courts will presume that you're going to silence the MiL once and for all...Presumably the same goes for a fishing rod, car, m/cycle?

 

Fact...if you receive a live broadcast you need a licence. If you don't, then a licence isn't needed despite what the Courts care to presume.

 

So fill your house with as many televisions, fishing rods, cars and motorcycles as you wish; it's quite legal to do so.

 

Though I'd suggest moving the MiL out of harms way; maybe Midsomer Norton?

 

TBT.

[monasqueen]

As a system for funding the BBC, the "licence" clearly no longer works. Create any "tax", and people will try to avoid it. Perhaps the "tax" should be levied on sales of any sort of equipment that is capable of receiving broadcasts, with no exceptions?

 

I have no problem with it (am I the exception?)

 

I watch at least as much BBC as any other channel, and prefer to see news programmes "live". I just couldn't be arsed tuning into iplayers or whatever to watch something after the event - I'd rather do without altogether (I did spend some 20 years without a television, before the computer age really kicked in, and I don't think I missed much!)

[woolley]

 

 

Plenty of those on here think that they're sponsoring non-licence payers; just stick with radio or download and their argument evaporates.

So, you're happy to watch BBC programmes via download but are unwilling to pay towards their productions costs.....

 

Yes.

 

Just as the BBC are happy to watch me fund C4 and ITV et al, and yet have no compunction about me not being able to watch those programmes via live broadcast.

 

The BBC have a monopoly, they're abusing the priviledge. So I'm not paying. And the law agrees with me

 

TBT.

The best solution to this would be to protect the i-player so that you have to enter your licence number and a password to access the BBC programmes. This would sort out those who currently don't have a licence while watching on i-player which is clearly illogical and a legal nonsense.

 

Those who genuinely don't watch TV at all should not be harassed, but I have no sympathy with the i-player freeloaders, and I don't believe for a moment there are too many of those who watch no live TV at all in any case. They just say that to further their urban warfare of licence evasion. I do believe TBT when he says he doesn't watch live. He seems fundamentalist enough to stick to that mantra and I've been round in circles with him on here about it often enough. I do wonder what his wife thinks of him when she is unable to watch "Downton" on Christmas Day as he mentioned earlier.

 

I have no time for the politics of the BBC as I have said many times before. I have even less time for the theft that is evading a share of the cost of the content you are watching. Under 3 quid a week? Not worth the blood pressure. Cough up boys.

[Merkin]

What difference does it make if you watch the programmes on catch up or live? Still cost the same to produce.

I would be pretty ashamed if my father was a freeloading cheapskate.

[woolley]

What difference does it make if you watch the programmes on catch up or live? Still cost the same to produce.

I would be pretty ashamed if my father was a freeloading cheapskate.

Quite. Have you noticed how the "rebels" in those youtube clips seem to be somewhat unhinged, as though the angst has eaten away at the brain?

[ballaughbiker]

Shouting after the hastily retreating goon alleging that he is complicit in pedophilia or a pedophile himself really does illustrate the level at which they are (or perhaps aren't) thinking.

 

That said whilst I think the BBC is remarkable value, Capita's modi operandi are quite despicable. Even their cleverly worded letters are designed to cause alarm and panic. I think this is unlikely to have any effect on a determined evader but might well frighten an elderly person into paying when they don't have to.

 

This is an outmoded method of payment. All BBC should be encrypted and those wishing to access it should pay for a smart card. I would be happy to pay that way. If we had a smart card like I have for foreign (no, not that sort....) tv, all those Capita goons could be employed "elsewhere".

[woolley]

Yes. Capita are not a particularly likeable outfit. Mr Blair seemed to like them though.

[The Border Terrier]

What difference does it make if you watch the programmes on catch up or live?

 

The former doesn't require a licence, the latter does. If you don't mind waiting until the programme is available via the BBC iplayer...then you can save the cost of a licence.

 

Similarly, if you're happy to drive a car over here with a small engine, then the road fund licence fee will be less than a car with a larger engine.

 

If you're keen enough to ride a bicycle or walk everywhere, you don't require a road fund licence.

 

But then you'd be stigmatised as a freeloading cheapskate!

 

It's just a case of the non-tv licence payer circumnavigating the social abhorrence...and at a saving of £145.50/annum, I'm willing to take that risk.

 

TBT.

[The Border Terrier]

>The best solution to this would be to protect the i-player so that you have to enter your licence number and a password to access the BBC programmes.

 

Commercial suicide, that's why the BBC won't do it.

 

>This would sort out those who currently don't have a licence while watching on i-player which is clearly illogical and a legal nonsense.

 

And a system created by the BBC themselves. I can remember when I couldn't watch any TV programme without a licence. Pre-71 you needed a radio licence! The download debarcle was self inflicted.

 

>Those who genuinely don't watch TV at all should not be harassed,

 

If you don't have a colour licence, you WILL be harrassed. It would be naive bordering on stupidity to think otherwise.

 

>I do believe TBT when he says he doesn't watch live. He seems fundamentalist enough to stick to that mantra...

 

It's the terrier tenacity showing through.

 

> I do wonder what his wife thinks of him when she is unable to watch "Downton" on Christmas Day as he mentioned earlier.

 

Every Jan 1st I give her the £145.50 'licence fee' ; everybody has their price

 

>I have no time for the politics of the BBC as I have said many times before...

 

Easy, just don't watch their political programmes.

 

>I have even less time for the theft that is evading a share of the cost of the content you are watching.

 

What about the inconvenience to non-licence fee payers not being allowed to watch live programmes broadcast by rival companies to the BBC, programmes that they have paid for! Can't have your cake and eat it!

 

>Under 3 quid a week? Not worth the blood pressure.

 

Yours perhaps, but mine can stand the pressure ad infinitum. It's the terrier mentality again; the Border terrier isn't noted for its intelligence, but has stubbornness by the bucket load. Fabulous dogs, wouldn't have any other breed, my current brace are #'s 4 and 5 in my lifetime.

 

>Cough up boys.

 

You just need to change the law, and then I'll go exclusively YouTube!

 

TBT.

[ans]

>The best solution to this would be to protect the i-player so that you have to enter your licence number and a password to access the BBC programmes.

 

Commercial suicide, that's why the BBC won't do it.

Sorry, why is this commercial suicide? You'll have to explain the bad economics to me of only making something available to someone who pays as opposed to making it available to everyone regardless.

 

I'm against the license fee though and didn't pay it for many years. If I lost BBC as a service, I don't think I'd notice, that's why I believe it should be an optional subscription service. I might notice the BBC website going, that's about it but there are plenty of other news websites around.

[Blade Runner]

Why dont they just change the rules to remove the bit about watching live broadcasts?

 

This BTW does not mean you can just record everything and then watch on a few second delay, if you have the capability to record a live programme you should pay that huge sum every week, of 3 new pounds.....................

[Tournesol]

So I switch on my freeview TVs and see a screen list indicating 'no information'. I don't know what's on or when. This is every day. The BBC don't want to know and the people who supply the antenna tell me that I can see it from my house so it's not their problem. I get sod all of anything on the listing (when I can actually see a listing) What the hell am I paying for?

[Roger Mexico]

As a system for funding the BBC, the "licence" clearly no longer works. Create any "tax", and people will try to avoid it. Perhaps the "tax" should be levied on sales of any sort of equipment that is capable of receiving broadcasts, with no exceptions?

 

Actually you're arguing against yourself there. If people will try to evade a tax based on residence (for that's what the Licence Fee effectively is) then they're going certainly going to try to evade a sales tax - sales taxes are traditionally the easiest sort to dodge. One obviously way would simply be to buy TVs etc from outside the UK.

 

Another problem would be that the flow of income to the BBC would be very unreliable, it would slow down massively in a recession but might flood in when there was some new technology to buy that everyone wanted. This in turn would lead to the BBC promoting endless new equipment upgrades that people had to buy to continue getting the service which would end up costing the viewer much more in the long run than the current system.

 

 

Yes. Capita are not a particularly likeable outfit. Mr Blair seemed to like them though.

 

Didn't he just. Of course the feeling was mutual and its founder Rod Aldridge was forced to resign when it was discovered that he was loaning money to the Labour Party at the same time that capita were getting lots of juicy government contracts.

 

I always make sure I pay my TV Licence trough the Post Office, so the money doesn't go anywhere near Crapita (as Private Eye calls them). Viewers in the UK don't have that option and Capita clearly would like the same thing to be true here. Though of course Mr Bell and Mr Robertshaw want to stop all this old fashioned Post Office business for payments, no doubt bringing is some 'efficient' private company to do things.

 

 

Why dont they just change the rules to remove the bit about watching live broadcasts?

 

This BTW does not mean you can just record everything and then watch on a few second delay, if you have the capability to record a live programme you should pay that huge sum every week, of 3 new pounds.....................

 

Not just 'should' but 'have to'. You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it's being broadcast. Presumably the only reason iPlayer is currently excluded is that it postdates when the legislation was last changed and UK Governments have been too cowardly to take on the BBC's opponents among the media moguls.

[Blade Runner]

 

Who issues these warrants ? What evidence is required for their issue.? No just a suspicion based on f.all surely?

 

The Capita guy in the youtube video is bluffing (don't they all!). Application for, and granting of, a search warrant is extremely rare. I've certainly never heard of one being issued over here to investigate TV licence evasion. Anybody?

 

And if one was issued against me I'd find out the person that authorised it, then visit his property in similar fashion.

 

But, because I've never filled in a Census form...Capita don't know who I am (or are too lazy to find out) and all the letters are addressed to 'the occupier'.

Interesting that the Capita 'inspector' suggested that filming (on ones own property?) was against his human rights. So to film and subsequently YouTube, looks like the achilles heel of the licence bullies.

 

If you refuse 'implied rights of access', he's breaking the law by accessing any part of your property. Then just run him through with a bayonet saying you were in fear of your life.

 

TBT.

 

Never filling in a Census form will have no bearing on your TV licence "woes". They work on the reasonable assumption that every household will have a TV and therefore target houses, not individuals unless they have your details from a previous Licence. If you are fearful of filling in a census form then you would be better not being on the internet and especially posting on here; you never know who is watching/ listening, get your tinfoil hat on quick.

 

Like the problem I had with Capita and the 18 months of letters and phone-calls, I was in the right and because I finally got thru to them it has stopped. I should have made a complaint earlier.

 

They will always harass a householder that has refused entry, as that is a sign that you have something to hide. (Look at the videos posted, the people in them come across as being unhinged, to be polite about it and also look at the state of their front gardens, that says a lot about them too) If you have nothing to hide let them in and show them your setup and if, as you say, you do not watch live, then you too will stop being hassled - Sorted.