Ok for non-UK peeps a brief Description of what a TV License is over here, over here in the UK if you want to watch any television be it provided from your local cable company or just ITV you have to a pay a TV License fee for owning a TV in your home or TV recieving equipment to the BBC for this priveledge. This is around 120 quid a year, about 200+ us dollars. In Return the BBC provides free terristerialalalalalalala Television with absolutely no commercial advertising on 2 channels which are recievable with bunny ears as you north americans call em, you can also now get a free digital box I believe and recieve even more channels, This also pays for regionally varieted channels with programming more direct to where you live and news. On top of this they also run several radio stations with these funds, none of them really any good since it's all egotistical swines on the radio's in the uk these days(or whiny gratey women).
So it stands in all probability there is a very large chance you will never ever watch anything or listen to anything that this fee you pay provides, yet you are legally obliged too by law or face a ridiculous fine.
Ok with that all explain I will now bring you to an IRC conversation which I felt brought up an interesting issue that I Want discussed with more direction and better quality input :P
<Gremlin> see if i get tv through my pc do i still have to pay for a tv license?
<Eff> If you use or install television receiving equipment to receive or record television programme services you are required by law to have a valid TV Licence
<Gremlin> shit
<Eff> they only charge the person who answers the door, so just dont answer any doors
<Homerio> yeh you do need a tv lisence, however if tv men ever come to your door you dont have to let them in unless they have a search warrant with a police officer
<stupeh> "Knock Knock", "Who's there?", "TV licence man", "I'm not going to open the door, YOU LOSE"
<Homerio> which they cant get unless they have sufficient evidence, ie you letting them inside in the first place
<stupeh> dont they have that device thing that tells em from outside
<Homerio> and tv detector vans are bullshit
<Eff> How our detector vans can catch out licence evaders
<Eff> We can detect a TV in use, in any area. That's because every TV contains a component called the 'local oscillator', which emits a signal when the television is switched on. It's this signal that the equipment on our vans picks up.
<stupeh> ah, k
<Homerio> there has never been a prosecution in the uk with them used as evidence
<Eff> But, what if you live in a block of flats or a house without road access? Well if this is the case our enquiry officer can simply use one of our hand-held scanners. Measuring both direction and strength of signal, they make it easy for us to locate television sets in hard to reach places.
<stupeh> just live in a house surrounded by fields, and do em for trespassing if they come near
<Homerio> yeh but even a computer monitor emits that signal when its turned on tv detection vans are bull
<Eff> when i bought a tv they made me fill in a form with my address, so they can pass it on to the details to the licencing ppl
<Homerio> thats just gay
<Eff> so i guess, just buy second hand tvs
<Homerio> well dont think my parents had to when they bought theres maybe that store gets paid to by the tv people
<Eff> who knows
And with that last line of the log I do want to see who knows.
p.s. Please keep your pedantism to a one post per thread limit, i.e. if you have to correct the tense or the spelling of anything do it once and don't post again IF YOU REALLY MUST. I'm sure no-one else would understand this post otherwise if it wasn't for you English teachers outthere
