Added Snoopery?

Government Thugs, Surveillance Society, Two-Minute Hate

I started reading this article in the DM  more for entertainment value than any other reason:

I do not have a TV license as I only watch Netflix and Amazon. However, I’ve heard I will now need to buy a license. Is this true?

I know, I know:  the premise of the question is puzzling to my Murkin Readers, in that the very concept of a “TV license” is unfamiliar not to say abhorrent.  But leaving that aside for the moment, I found my amusement turning into something else altogether as I started reading the answer:

The general rule is that under UK law you need to have a current TV license if you, or anyone within your house, flat or premises, watches live television on any channel or service, record television programs as they are being broadcast live or watch anything on BBC iPlayer.

So when you tune in to watch ‘on demand’ television, such as Netflix, Amazon and other similar streaming services, no TV license is needed.

This is because here you are not watching ‘live’ programs – i.e. shows that are being broadcast when you watch or record them but, instead, choosing from a catalogue of options.

So far. so good (well no, not at all good, but whatever).  Here’s where I started to feel a familiar itch in the old trigger finger:

What you have heard about relates to Netflix, the US streaming giant which has 17.1 million UK subscribers and has launched a new service where it broadcasts ‘live’ events – for example the former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul boxing match being broadcast on Friday.

This is therefore ‘live’ television, meaning if you watch this, or any other Netflix live event, as it is broadcast, or even if you record it to watch later, you fall squarely into the territory of needing a TV license.

To clarify, you can continue to watch Netflix without a TV license if you chose not to watch the live events.

Which begs the question:  how EXACTLY does the BBC licensing Stasi know whether you’re watching a movie or a live show?

It seems quite a simple deduction that that the answer is twofold:  either Netflix is sharing the viewing choices of the subscribers with the BBC, or the BBC is able somehow to monitor the channel feed, whether terrestrial or wireless.  Either answer is fucking terrible.

I should point out that the only way the BBC can enforce this ridiculous license fee nonsense is because Brits are largely disarmed.  If some Lizenzinspektor  came to the average Texan’s door and started with the strong-arm bullshit, there’d soon be murders.

And just so we know what this is all about:

The standard TV licence now costs £169.50 per year.  If you are required to have a license but fail to buy one, you risk being fined up to £1,000, plus any legal costs and compensation you may be ordered to pay. 

Let’s hear it for the Surveillance Society.

13 comments

  1. The BBC mostly relies on scary letters to intimidate people into paying.

    They do send people out day to day, to try direct intimidation of those without a license. Mostly stay at home wives, and the underclass.

    I haven’t had a TV license for years, the letters still turn up regularly, to go straight into the bin.

  2. The Dutch solved this by simply making a TV/radio license mandatory for everyone, whether you have a TV (or computer with internet or radio) or not.

    This under the assumption that everyone has at least something that can access public broadcasts (TV, radio, internet, smartphone, car radio, etc. etc.).

    And to ensure everyone pays, it’s rolled into your income taxes, which are billed to everyone, including those on social security (most people don’t even realise this, as many of them never pay them themselves, they’re automatically withheld from your salary or social security or pension).

    This saved the government quite a bit of money as the small army of detector vans roaming the countries looking for active antennae could be retired.

  5. The older I get the more I regret ever watching television. Much of it is rubbish. I do like movies and documentaries though.

    Here in the US we pay for cable or internet for streaming of television programs. At first cable promised no commercials I think. we never had it growing up.

  6. The spying has got to stop whether it is traffic cameras, data collected by car manufacturers and then turned over to insurance companies and the government etc.

    Someone tell the crackheads that there is a lot of copper in the traffic cameras

  7. Marshall McLuhan, where are you now that we need you? Watching video is like reading toilet paper. If it’s not text it’s not subject to critical thought.
    .

  8. Dollars to donuts, I suspect 99% of the filthy immigrants do NOT pay any license or fee for that service. And the roaming vans and strongly worded letters are carefully sent to those few remaining white people who can be easily intimidated.

    Or not, I could be wrong. I mean, any country or culture which allows organized immigrant gang rapes and prostitution of their young women could easily surprise you by standing up to TV license thieves and scoundrels.

  9. On the technical side the snooping is probably done at the ISP. Snooping is already done there for kiddie porn and the like; adding the BBC to the list seems trivial, though I’ve been out of the field for over a decade now, so my knowledge may be out of date.

    1. I don’t think there is much snooping, and I suspect the detector vans were always a red herring.

      The BBC have a database of addresses, available from the Royal Mail, and they send letters to everyone on it who doesn’t have a TV licence.

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