| Both sides previous revision Previous revision | |
| articles:dshensmith [2026/03/30 21:58] – hjr | articles:dshensmith [2026/03/30 22:03] (current) – hjr |
|---|
| You see why I thought it important to state what the law //actually// is? If you say it's "watch and record", you've limited it to "use" and proving use of a traditional TV is monstrously hard and might give people a false sense of security. If you say it's "install or use", you are not only more accurate in terms of the words actually used in the legislation, you're making it clear that the offence has two prongs and you can be skewered on either: traditional TV will probably skewer you more on the "installed" side of things than the "use"; laptops, tablets, phones and computers will probably skewer you on the "use" side of things, rather than the "installed". The point remains that //because// it's a two-pronged piece of legislation, they can get you either way. | You see why I thought it important to state what the law //actually// is? If you say it's "watch and record", you've limited it to "use" and proving use of a traditional TV is monstrously hard and might give people a false sense of security. If you say it's "install or use", you are not only more accurate in terms of the words actually used in the legislation, you're making it clear that the offence has two prongs and you can be skewered on either: traditional TV will probably skewer you more on the "installed" side of things than the "use"; laptops, tablets, phones and computers will probably skewer you on the "use" side of things, rather than the "installed". The point remains that //because// it's a two-pronged piece of legislation, they can get you either way. |
| |
| Daniel Shensmith may be an excellent barrister for all I know. But he's sometimes a lousy communicator and, especially on this occasion, he has missed the very careful way the law has //actually// been written. No, plugging a TV into the wall has never been and never will be a licensable act: but deliberately tuning it in //is// (and always has been). It's purposeful and easy to prove and it matters not one whit whether you've actually viewed the results of your careful, deliberate installation. The law says you don't have to have done, to require a licence. | Daniel Shensmith may be an excellent barrister for all I know. But he's sometimes a lousy communicator (in my opinion, obviously!) and, especially on this occasion, I believe he has missed the very careful way the law has //actually// been written. No, plugging a TV into the wall has never been and never will be a licensable act: but deliberately tuning it in //is// (and always has been). It's purposeful and easy to prove and it matters not one whit whether you've actually viewed the results of your careful, deliberate installation. The law says you don't have to have done, to require a licence. |
| |
| I'll conclude by mentioning that I do own a TV set of the traditional type (if LCDs can really be called 'traditional'! God, I feel old!!). It sits in the Summer House, plugged into an old Mac Mini, with its audio output being fed into an old hi-fi system and a pair of speakers. I can play music on it on a Summer's evening, with Giocoso; I could even watch a movie out there, using Emby. What I can't do is ever, possibly, watch live TV on it. Why not? Because there's no aerial in the Summer House, so there's no aerial socket to plug it into. What's more, when I ran that TV's 'first setup' routine, I declared I was in Australia: the auto-tuning process it then went off to do resulted in a total wall of snowy white noise, with no possibility of actual program reception. That TV set also has the BBC iPlayer app built-in: it's conceivable that I might be able to watch BBC programme content on it via that mechanism ...except I can't, because I deleted my BBC account back in 2018 and if you are unable to log in ("deliberately") to the BBC, you can't ever view any iPlayer content. | I'll conclude by mentioning that I do own a TV set of the traditional type (if LCDs can really be called 'traditional'! God, I feel old!!). It sits in the Summer House, plugged into an old Mac Mini, with its audio output being fed into an old hi-fi system and a pair of speakers. I can play music on it on a Summer's evening, with Giocoso; I could even watch a movie out there, using Emby. What I can't do is ever, possibly, watch live TV on it. Why not? Because there's no aerial in the Summer House, so there's no aerial socket to plug it into. What's more, when I ran that TV's 'first setup' routine, I declared I was in Australia: the auto-tuning process it then went off to do resulted in a total wall of snowy white noise, with no possibility of actual program reception. That TV set also has the BBC iPlayer app built-in: it's conceivable that I might be able to watch BBC programme content on it via that mechanism ...except I can't, because I deleted my BBC account back in 2018 and if you are unable to log in ("deliberately") to the BBC, you can't ever view any iPlayer content. |
| |
| So: a TV set deliberately and intentionally installed in a way to //not// receive live TV signals; and a deliberate deletion of the one account I'd need to view streaming content from the BBC: I won't be convicted on either the "installed" or "use" prongs of the Act. | So: a TV set deliberately and intentionally installed in a way to //not// receive live TV signals; and a deliberate deletion of the one account I'd need to view streaming content from the BBC: I won't be convicted on either the "installed" or "use" prongs of the Act. |