News TV Licensing Authority to deploy Wi-Fi sniffing vans

Seeing as you only need a licence to view live broadcasts how, if it was even possible, tell the difference between someone watching live iPlayer versus its catch up service.

And welcome back Mr G, hope you had a relaxing break.

 

I read somewhere they were looking at the pattern of packets being transmitted so they don't have to break encryption.


Edit: I somehow missed Gareths post above but as I said I read something similar elsewhere.

 

I call BS

 

I've just now realised reading this that I've not actually needed a TV license for quite some time, despite having continued to pay for it via DD

 

Not to encourage avoidance after the change, but

* ahem *

Ethernet?

 

It's not so much that I didn't know the requirements, more than it's been coming out via DD for years and I just kind of forgot about it... I'm not sure what's worse

You've described precisely my scenario. The media room is movie/game central, the other TVs are Netflix/Amazon. Whilst there has been live TV played in the last year, it's been the odd F1 race, tennis match spot or of news/cooking as background filler that I could happily do without (i.e. when I don't want to think about what I want to watch because I'm not really watching it, I'll just put on whatever's on), or the in-laws wanting to watch Emmerdale or the Queen's speech at christmas, which I could definitely do without.

I sincerely hope I get the inspectors round once I've canned it. I have a perception that they're just the worst authoritarian-delusions-of-grandeur types that I'm just going to love screwing with

 

I had them threaten to come over, when I lived in a block of flats with a friend - Neither of us owned a TV, equipment to receive it, and iPlayer wasn't a thing back then.

They sent six letters in four weeks, and then two weeks after they claimed they'd send someone round, sent another letter saying they had visited the premises during the work day, and determined we had a television thus owed them a lot of money.

Except, the lounge only had airsoft guns and empty boxes that they'd have been able to see through the window, and we were both at work..

TV Licenses people are weird and fantastic at making **** up. Still. Never paid them anything.

 

I'm thinking... what about guests that decide to watch iPlayer on their phone or laptop whilst they visit?

As the requirement says (or will say come later in the year) use of iPlayer on mobile devices requires a license, seems to be that so long as the consumer of the media has a license, it matters not where it is being consumed? Not that I have lots of guests using iPlayer, that I'm aware of, but if I'm going to be obstinate with the inspectors then I may as well be righteous as well.

EDIT: Good news! I was only paid up until the end of August. Canned.

 

Here in Slovakia there is no way to avoid the monthly 4.64 euro fee - if you have electricity, you have to pay. No exceptions.

 

The BBC really needs to move with the time, stop calling it a TV Licence, and accept what they really are; an institutionalised Netflix.
People who expect the BBC content to be freely available but baulk at paying the TV licence frustrate me somewhat.

This whole "pay if you watch it live", but don't if you watch it later, is pretty stupid.

 

Ah, what if that the laptop is being wholly powered by the battery, even when the battery itself is charging?

I'm nigh on certain there's going to be a pretty wide berth for various interpretations of any wording. Isn't is a regulation that regulations things like this are always at least a decade behind the real world?

The "pay for live, not for catch-up" was moronic, but I suspect that was just a hangover from a time where "live" either meant for certain BBC content, or "live" was they only way they would stand a chance of policing it.

The new rule makes more sense, in that it's any BBC content at all - live or catch-up, but the fact that you're still prevented from watching broadcast TV from any number of other providers is still slightly moronic, and you can still of course listen to BBC radio or read BBC news (I assume? Not that I do either)

I have zero expectation of the BBC content being provided for free, I do however resent funding the BBC for consumption of other content, and the gestapo tactics that go into enforcing it.

 

I brought this up when I called them, after a little wait they said "While we dont discuss our detection methods, I can confirm that we dont snoop on folks wifi to see if they are watching bbc iplayer". That was it in essence and you could tell they were reading out.

 

Create an IP list of all peoples watching iPlayer
Cross-reference IPs with known address'
Check if address' have paid for TV license

So hard?

 

I do question why they don't just use the same setup as Sky and put on a DRM box and also join up with the likes of Sky and Virgin so people can use their box as an alternative. Pay the fee, enable the box and get a log on for the iPlayer. Yes, log ons can be shared, but it can be shared for netflix and any other online paid media service.

It seems weird to me to pay people to harass residents of houses when they could just put a technological solution in place that has existed for decades.

I do resent being hassled and forced to pay for something that I don't want and generally think is of awful quality. Unlike in the UK, if I have so much as a clothes hanger up on the roof or anything in the house that can be used to intercept a television signal, even a broken television I am liable to pay. Whilst a tv would be nice to kickback and watch some youtube or netflix on I can't even have that without having to pay the license.