TV Licence

Jonboy_1984

Just remember that if you decide to use iplayer on your laptop etc when staying around your licensed friends/parents house, to use a different email address to anything you have previously used with TV licensing, as I have seen comment they do match the two lists and have sent “are you sure you don’t need a license” emails.

Cornucopia

This looks like the latest poor wording in a long history of poor wording by TV Licensing (aka the BBC).

The operative term is "live streaming" i.e. you are streaming a piece of content in parallel to its broadcast on traditional transmission services.

The "latest series" bit is irrelevant - it is ANY content from a TV broadcaster that is live streamed.  

Given the requirement for it to be in parallel to traditional broadcast, and it to be from a TV Broadcaster, it does not include Netflix.

edit:   Generally speaking, any letter from TV Licensing that talks about your address being under investigation or about to be under investigation is made up nonsense.   The only routine form of investigation available to TV Licensing is to come to your door and optionally have the door closed in their face.   That doesn't seem to meet the requirements of the word.

edit2:  It seems like this text may be in the process of being changed.   When I searched for it, it came up as matched by Google in a summary on the search results page... but it was not in the linked page.   

forgotmyname

Cornucopia said:

edit:   Generally speaking, any letter from TV Licensing that talks about your address being under investigation or about to be under investigation is made up nonsense.  The only routine form  of investigation available to TV Licensing is to come to your door and optionally have the door closed in their face.   That doesn't seem to meet the requirements of the word.

Or they come to your door and get you to say you watch TV and they fill in a form to say you said you watch live TV?

or

Can you sign this to say I visited..... Which they later write that you admitted to watching live TV?

I chose to spend my money on Prime rather than a TV licence. I did the no licence require thing, did not see anything about letting them in.

Still received several you are unlicenced letters in the first few weeks but nothing since.

sheslookinhot

If you receive letters from TV Licensing phone them up and tell them you feel threatened at the “tone” of the letter and if they do not stop you will raise a formal complaint.

FreeBear

sheslookinhot said:

If you receive letters from TV Licensing phone them up and tell them you feel threatened at the “tone” of the letter and if they do not stop you will raise a formal complaint.

Phone calls cost money. The cheaper option is to make a note of the return address, and bin anything you receive unopened. It has served me well for the last eight years.

Cornucopia

forgotmyname said:

Cornucopia said:

edit:   Generally speaking, any letter from TV Licensing that talks about your address being under investigation or about to be under investigation is made up nonsense.  The only routine form  of investigation available to TV Licensing is to come to your door and optionally have the door closed in their face.   That doesn't seem to meet the requirements of the word.

Or they come to your door and get you to say you watch TV and they fill in a form to say you said you watch live TV?

or

Can you sign this to say I visited..... Which they later write that you admitted to watching live TV?

I chose to spend my money on Prime rather than a TV licence. I did the no licence require thing, did not see anything about letting them in.

Still received several you are unlicenced letters in the first few weeks but nothing since.

Overall, I'd say there's virtually no benefit to speaking with them.   There does seem to be some evidence of them being on a long-term project to clean up their act, but it's still hard to justify making any kind of statement or explanation to them - there is simply no benefit to it.

The wording of their various key bits of text varies over time, and the wording of the threats and misleading comments in their letters also changes.   There certainly was a time when the agreement associated with the "no Licence needed" process talked in terms of "an inspector may call" or words to that effect.   I don't know whether it still does, but either way it is meaningless.   It isn't a legally-binding commitment, the NLN "declaration" isn't legally binding, either, and the overall process is created by the BBC not by legislation... so it's not legally required or legally binding.

The letters are best binned, or if they are addressed anonymously they can be returned unopened at no cost to the recipient.

forgotmyname

I may ignore the no licence required renewal and return everything stating I already informed them. I will not be renewing every 2 years
or whatever timeframe they put on it. I informed them once and thats me done unless I require one in the future, where I will purchase a
licence if required.

I don't have to repeatedly inform every company that I no longer require their services so I will treat them the same and once is enough.

grimsalve

It's aggressive harassment - I'm still baffled how the BBC/Capita are allowed to get away with behaving like this.

No other company would be allowed to operate in this way.

I still pay my license fee but I don't have time to watch any live TV at all these days. I've heard that the license fee freeze ends next April and the BBC are bound to increase it so that might be the point I give up on live TV altogether and go for "no license needed" instead.

Cornucopia

Part of their justification is that they are enforcing the law.  Which I think probably does give them a degree of latitude in spelling out the nature of the offence, and the consequences of prosecution.

However, they don't seem to be content with that, and in particular they...

- "Confuse" legal requirements and their own administrative processes that don't have the force of law.
- Portray a very one-sided narrative that does not reflect the very many opt-outs and legal rights that people have in the face of their enforcement activity.
- Almost never state the most obvious thing for legally unlicensed households to do... which is nothing.
- Don't provide any option for responding to the enforcement letters without giving up personal information that is not a legal requirement.

BlackbeltBarrister has just made a couple of videos about whether the TVL letters might be considered harassment.   I don't think he's quite there yet in terms of a definitive view of what might be done about them, but it seems like it might be on the way.

FreeBear

Cornucopia said:

Part of their justification is that they are enforcing the law.  Which I think probably does give them a degree of latitude in spelling out the nature of the offence, and the consequences of prosecution.

However, they don't seem to be content with that, and in particular they...

Add to that list - Their doorstep interrogations fall well short of any PACE compliance. They will ask leading questions without first informing you of your rights... Get most upset when you refuse to answer, and really don't like to be told to leave.

.... Or may be it was the way I instructed the last goon to leave that upset him...