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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

There seems to have been some progress here, last time I read the relevant Act I'd swear that it referred to the legality of having "receiving means" (not sure on that wording, I do have bad memory!!). So you were technically in breach if you had a TV with an aerial, it wasn't necessary to show you watched it?

Am I misremembering?

This change is actual encouraging for me as the new box I got to use for catch up services I think allows live TV (as a paid extra) and so I was concerned I might be accused of being in breach of the Act, but it seems not. Always nice to know.

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IANAL, but it seems a little bit of a silly idea to criminalize owning a TV. For that matter, 'receiving means' surely also includes having a laptop or tablet in the house, as that's a means of receiving live TV.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I know that I had to buy a TV license when I moved in with my SO, but I'm not sure if that's because we bought a TV (we never watch it) or if my SO just did the necessary paperwork out of habit.

>having a laptop or tablet in the house, as that's a means of receiving live TV. //

Well that's probably why the law was updated (if indeed it was) - the same rules used to apply to PC TV-tuner cards too though, having a tuner card was considered "receiving means" and meant license was needed for any premises where that computer was plugged in.

We have a TV but haven't had broadcast TV for many years, since our aerial blew down and we had no money to get it fixed - we stopped paying the license then as we no longer had receiving means. Just watch DVDs, iPlayer and the like (and use it for Wii).

As an aside, you can use a laptop to watch live TV anywhere (in UK), as long as you have a license for your "home"; but if you plug it in (eg to charge) then the premises you're at need a license!

So even if you don't plug in, say you're on a train or in a park, you can't legally watch live TV without a license for your home? I remember 15 years ago people (not many admittedly) having battery-powered handheld TVs - if a homeless person were to use one of those on the street would he be breaking the law?

AFAIK - yes (license required per address [with some exceptions]) and yes (homeless person acting illegally).

Also not a lawyer, but I believe similar to other criminal cases, the investigator, then the prosecutor, then the judge and/or jury would need to make subjective judgement calls to decide whether or not to move ahead with prosecution, based on the specific situation.

For example a TV with built-in tuner and no other equipment (no DVD player, no console, etc etc) they would likely be able to argue that you do watch live TV even if you weren't witnessed doing it, whereas a TV that isn't connected to any aerial but is connected to an Xbox you could probably convince them otherwise without even leaving your own home.

I suspect that they would also lean towards giving the benefit of the doubt, because it's such a minor crime that if there's a chance you'd be found innocent in court, or that they'd have to spend time investigating further, it's a much better use of their time to move on to the next person.

But I could well be wrong.

Can confirm that the law changed from "owning equipment capable of viewing" to the actual act of viewing in 2003. You can fill in a form online to confirm that your TV is not used to watch lice broadcast. When I did that at a previous address with flatmates, they did send an inspector around a few months later to confirm. After a polite encounter to basically simply confirm that "we don't watch broadcasted signals" we were told that all was fine and that we wouldn't be bothered again.

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