Different question regarding TV licencing ...

Cinders2001

Dear Mrs ----

Thank you for your recent email.

You can connect to any wi-fi and watch sky go etc as long as you are not using their mains electricity whether you are in a pub/restaurant, someone else's home or on a train.

I hope I've been able to explain the situation and thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

TV Licensing

glentoran99

Cinders2001 wrote: »

Sky Go allows me to watch LIVE and catch up Sky programmes when I am no where near my house!
A rather handy app!
I have a copy of my licence on my iPad.

So by what you both have said, I CAN legally use their WiFi in THEIR house to watch LIVE TV even though they are unlicensed, so long as I am not powered by the mains, nor (somehow) using an external aerial on my iPad as I view.

Got it!
Thank you! xx

WHy? ?????

Cinders2001

Why what?

Is it the highlighted bit?

Copy of licence as Martin suggested in a different post.

HappyMJ

Cinders2001 wrote: »

Dear Mrs ----

Thank you for your recent email.

You can connect to any wi-fi and watch sky go etc as long as you are not using their mains electricity whether you are in a pub/restaurant, someone else's home or on a train.

I hope I've been able to explain the situation and thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

TV Licensing

I had a little more correspondence than that...can't find it now.

Some places have been caught by allowing customers to plug in a tablet into a wall socket (*for charging purposes) then the customer has used Sky Go to watch live TV. Who is responsible for the TV licence? It's not the person who plugged in the tablet. The tablet has now been "installed" so the business owner/tenant is responsible. The customer is under no obligation to answer any questions at all. Even if the small business owner never intended for customers to use their own 4G internet to watch TV they can get caught. I would like to think that TV licence inspectors would give a bit of leeway in these circumstances though and ignore any inadvertent use by what would be otherwise valid licensed customers.

Cornucopia

Have you got any evidence of this happening, as it doesn't sound quite right.

There are two offences, in fact. The main one IS committed by the person who "installs" the equipment and uses it to watch TV broadcasts.

There is a secondary offence of: "A person with a television receiver in his possession or under his control who ... (b) knows, or has reasonable grounds for believing, that another person intends to install or use it in contravention of that subsection". I can see how this could embroil a residential LL in an offence, if s/he provides a TV. However, I don't see how this definition fits the scenario of a coffee shop owner providing charging facilities for customers to use.

HappyMJ

Cornucopia wrote: »

Have you got any evidence of this happening, as it doesn't sound quite right.

There are two offences, in fact. The main one IS committed by the person who "installs" the equipment and uses it to watch TV broadcasts.

There is a secondary offence of: "A person with a television receiver in his possession or under his control who ... (b) knows, or has reasonable grounds for believing, that another person intends to install or use it in contravention of that subsection". I can see how this could embroil a residential LL in an offence, if s/he provides a TV. However, I don't see how this definition fits the scenario of a coffee shop owner providing charging facilities for customers to use.

I can't find the email from them...

....but from TV licensing web site...

Quote

If your staff or customers watch live TV without being covered by a TV Licence, your business is committing a criminal offence.

Your business could well have lots of visitors during the normal working day. The general rule is that if staff, customers or visitors watch live TV on your premises, your business needs to be covered by a TV Licence.

And from the good old daily mail...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3174421/Restaurateur-threatened-1-000-fine-customer-watches-TV-mobile-premises-astonishing-bullying-letter-BBC-TV-Licencing-body.html

A restaurateur has been threatened with a £1,000 fine or court action if any customer watches TV on their mobile phone in her premises in a 'bullying' letter from the BBC TV Licensing body.

I personally doubt anyone has actually been fined for allowing customers to plug in their tablets and not knowing whether or not they are watching live TV or not.

Cornucopia

Thanks.

The TVL letter, is, as always more about threats than valid information. For example, it never mentions the very relevant "powered by internal batteries" exemption. I would imagine that if challenged, they would say that it says "covered by A licence", which could be staff/customer's home Licence, if the circumstances permitted it. They are tricky/deceptive like that. You'd think that they would spell out the exact nature of the liability, but no. They are incompetent like that.

Also, for many types of business, I would have thought the liability for staff viewing and customer viewing would be quite different, but they lump it all together.

I'm still reasonably confident that the situation is not as straightforward as BBC/TVL makes out (though how many times have we said that).

I think there is potential liability to a business in the classic office environment where the business has given staff PCs or tablets and they then watch live TV upon them, using the power and comms infrastructure of the business. The relevant addresses could be blocked in order to prevent this.

The cafe/bar/coffee shop/bus/train scenario seems much less clear-cut to me, to the extent that AFAICT there is no basis in law for BBC/TVL to say what they are saying.

They do have a tendency, though, to see everything in terms of an obligation to them, rather than in normal, common sense terms. They have also created for themselves the notion of an (un)licensed address, which does not exist in the legislation.

Either way, the legislation says something quite specific that does not appear to apply to these circumstances. I would hope that any suitably wealthy business in receipt of one of these letters gets their solicitor to require TVL to "get thee hence".

Cinders2001

So are you saying my email from the Licencing dept themselves isn't correct?

Cornucopia

Cinders2001 wrote: »

So are you saying my email from the Licencing dept themselves isn't correct?

Your email is correct, but I think the info that HappyMJ has retrieved from the TVL website and the Daily Mail is questionable.

The issue isn't the battery-powered question, which is well-established, but the question of the liability of a business owner for the licensing of viewing done by staff/customers on their own portable equipment.

The thing is that TVL is a rogue organisation - hugely difficult to do business with, unpredictable and operating to very questionable legal parameters. You've done absolutely the right thing in getting them nailed-down in writing covering what you want to do.