A big thanks to one of our loyal Twitter followers Richard Mitton for bringing an article from today's Telegraph to our attention.
Telegraph blogger and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster (maybe not for much longer) Jake Wallis Simons wrote a post about some of the legally licence free alternatives to buying a TV licence.
He explains: "For all of my adult life, I’ve never owned a television. In the past,
this meant that one was limited to watching videos, which was extremely
limiting. These days, however, with the advent of DVDs and the internet,
there is not a huge difference between having a television and not
having one.
"I can watch BBC programmes for free on iPlayer, which is perfectly legal
so long as you're not watching live. I can watch Channel 4 On Demand.
Films can be watched on DVD, or downloaded on iTunes, Curzon Soho
online, and any number of other websites. The news is better consumed on
the web, which includes all the video footage one could wish for at the
click of a mouse."
As Jake correctly indicates, a TV licence is only required for those properties where equipment is used to receive live broadcast TV programmes. Using the BBC iPlayer, 4oD, ITV Player and other on-demand services to watch non-live content does not require a TV licence.
What he failed to mention is that anyone adopting this legally licence free lifestyle will undoubtedly be hounded by TV Licensing, who ignorantly assume anyone claiming not to watch TV is a liar. Rest assured that TV Licensing, the BBC's revenue collection racket, has no legal authority whatsoever over anyone not requiring a licence. The legally licence free can safely ignore TV Licensing's caustic and legally hollow correspondence and employees.
With the BBC up to its neck in sexual abuse allegations there has never been a better time to abandon the TV licence and stop funding their dubious operation.
Check out our free ebook, TV Licensing Laid Bare, for further information about TV Licensing and the licence fee.
3 comments:
For myself, I preferred Charles Moore's line from the Spectator
“the most regressive and most ruthlessly collected of all government imposts”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/the-spectators-notes/8744461/the-spectators-notes-327/
I draw your attention to one of the comments from the Telegraph article and ask how true it is:
"IT'S A LOVELY IDEA - BUT IT JUST ISN'T POSSIBLE!!
What's that you say? You don't have a TV? Ah but you have broadband right? So therefore you MUST be watching News 24 online! What's that you say? You don't watch News 24? Well you watch iplayer don't you? What's that you say? You don't watch live TV on iplayer? Ah, but iplayer now has live TV - so if you use iplayer you MUST be using it to watch live TV! What's that you say? You have no broadband or PC? But you have a mobile phone don't you? So you MUST be using it to watch live TV. TAKE HIM DOWN ----TO THE CELLS UNTIL THE FEE IS PAID.
Here's the deal. The law says that you don't need a licence if you do not watch TV as it is being broadcast. That is to give the false impression that you have some sort of choice. The law COULD just say "if you don't have a TV you don't pay". But then the licence fee could be avoided easily. Half the country would get rid of their TVs and just get their news from websites like the DT. So the law in couched in terms of doing something (receiving TV as it is being broadcast) rather than having a TV. Now what happens in practice? If you have any sort of device whatsoever - even a pay-as-you-go mobile phone - the law will ASSUME that you are using it to watch TV as it is being broadcast. So we have a bogus impression that we live in a free country - but in practice EVERYBODY HAS TO PAY the licence fee. This raises 3 or 4 billion for the BBC which is the state socialist propaganda department and the propaganda wing of the the Labour Party. But regardless of your opinions, you are forced to fund the socialist propaganda. No choice. There could even be an encrypted service for BBC TV, but no, that would give you a choice. Much easier to put iplayer on every platform and then the socialist judges in the socialist courts will just ASSUME you are watching live TV."
I posted the anonymous 11th November contribution. Why is the important point raised by the Telegraph reader getting the 3 Wise Monkeys treatment? If the law is free to assume liability - as it does in many other areas of life, simply as a precaution against people flouting the state's wishes - what's the point of 'lawful opposition' in the first place? The question is doubly important when you consider how the often outrageous behaviour of these parasites goes unpublicized. It goes unpublicized because the BBC itself and television generally remain the public's chief source of information. Most people don't own a computer in this country. We forget that. They have no access to the web and even less interest in getting any. You Tube and the various blogs have little impact in households like these, leaving the state and the corporation under far less pressure to change course than we might imagine.
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