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Comment by djmobley | Hacker News Reader

Watching television without a licence in the UK is actually a criminal (rather than civil) offence, and hundreds of thousands of purple are convicted each year of the offence.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/24/in-court-non...

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Wow, that article almost reads like a 1st of April joke. Why doesn't it affect your credit score, unlike non-payment of an electric/gas bill? I reckon that would make more people pay for it.

I kept getting these letters for years, even though I did not have a TV, or antenna.

To be clear, this only applies to television that is paid for by the license (BBC etc, including streaming via iPlayer). I have a television and use it only to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and am thus not required to pay the license. Which goes to show how ridiculous these vans are, since they can't tell where you're getting the content you're watching.

Sounded like they do have technology to tell what content you are watching, which is even more ridiculous.

It would've been borderline-possible in the days of over-the-air television - the first local oscillator in the TV is going to be tuned to a frequency directly related to the channel being watched, so RF leakage would make the channel detectable.

If you can get any light fluctuation reading at all from the room, you could correlate that with the live channel broadcast and get a match.

Which content you’re watching isn’t actually relevant, it’s where you are getting the content from. I could be watching a programme via an on-demand service at the same time as it’s shown on live TV, and I still wouldn’t need a license.

If what you are watching is live TV, it doesn't matter what device or service you use to watch it.

It doesn't matter if you're streaming it, watching it via a service like All 4, ITV Hub, etc. If it is live TV, you need a licence.

See: https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/L...

I specifically used the word on-demand, which is not live TV...

This is incorrect advice that could get someone convicted.

A licence is required if you watch live TV on any channel.

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

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. ...

> You don’t need a TV Licence if you only ever use these services to watch on demand or catch up programmes [...]

I would think that Netflix and Amazon are considered on demand services.

Netflix and amazon are not considered live TV.

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

Incredibly vague, does a live stream fall afoul of that rule?

Is that live stream being shown on tv while you are watching it? Yes or no? Same answer for having the tv license.

I believe it specifically refers to services that provide simulcast streams of traditional TV networks. Like Playstation Vue or Youtube TV.

Netflix and Amazon aren't live.

It’s not incorrect. Netflix and Amazon are not live TV. (Perhaps you missed the “etc” after BBC?)

You claimed: "this only applies to television that is paid for by the license [...]"

That is incorrect. It doesn't matter whether the content was paid for by the licence or not. If you are watching live TV, you need a licence.

Please provide an example of a live television channel in the UK that has not received any funds from the licence fee. To my knowledge, even small local channels receive funding which is directly traceable to the licence fee, though of course the BBC gets the lion's share.

Say I watch UFC 241 on my TV. It's live, it's on TV. I paid through it using the UFC app.

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ95 is pretty clear that I have to pay.

Why, ethically, should I be obliged to pay TVLA (and therefor the BBC) for something they didn't create or facilitate?

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