Best Get Your TV Licence Sorted

[Sponge Bob]

The government has noted that the best dynamic databases of who is living where at a given time are the Broadband and Midband carriers .

They are going to define all DSL and Mobile Midband BB services as a Television system during the summer. RTE Needs the money you see.

The Broadcasting Bill 2009 is shortly becoming the Broadcasting Act 2009

http://193.178.1.235/documents/bills...08/B29c08D.pdf

Co-Incidentally RTE launch their online player as the Bill passes its final Dáil stages ...maybe not co incidentally, go to page 142 of that link above aka "Part 9 the Television Licence"

To Section 140 first, Key Definitions.

140.—(1) In this Part—
“apartment” means a self-contained residential unit in a building that
comprises a number of such units;
“premises” means land, a vehicle, a structure of any kind whether
attached or affixed to the land or not and includes a part of a building
occupied as a separate dwelling whether or not the occupier with any
other person shares any portion of it or any accommodation, amenity
or facility in connection with it;
“television set” means any electronic apparatus capable of receiving
and exhibiting television broadcasting services broadcast for general
reception (whether or not its use for that purpose is dependent on
the use of anything else in conjunction with it) and any software or
assembly comprising such apparatus and other apparatus;

That which is NOT a Television set has to be EXCLUDED by ministerial order . If a Laptop can receive RTE iPlayer in Ireland it shall be 'licencable' unless it is excluded by order of Minister Eamon Ryan . You can always email him and ask yourself . Minister Ryan is great at answering th'oul emails God bless him.

Section 142 . The Power Of The Minister to Define what a "Television Set" is ( by exclusion) ......is absolute.

142.—(3) This section does not apply to a television set, which is of a
class or description for the time being declared by an order of the
Minister to be a class or description of television set to which this
section is not to apply.

and the collection of the licence fee can NOW be contracted out to YOUR BB provider as well as to An Post .

Section 145 . Collection Agents can be anybody, not just An Post .

145.—(1) In this section “issuing agent” means An Post or 35
another person designated by the Minister under subsection (3).
(2) Subject to subsection (12), an issuing agent may, on payment
of the appropriate licence fee, issue on behalf of the Minister a television
licence in accordance with this Part.
(3) The Minister may by order designate a person other than An Post to be an issuing agent for the purposes of this section other than
subsection (2).
(4) An issuing agent may—
(a) collect fees in respect of television licences

You have nothing to fear if you already have a TV licence .

If your ISP blocks RTE Player you have quite a strong case . No RTE by other means

However if you have BB and no Telly they can now get you if you can receive RTE Player over BB in your household .

This would mean that any device that can run a Flash Player , iPhone , Browser , PS3 , Handhelds etc etc will beome a Television set unless Minister Ryan excludes it from his 'list' .

Note further that a CAR or BUS is to be separately licenced if there is a TV in the dash for example or if a handheld device with tuner is used in the car or if it has S Band Satellite Capability seeing as Eutelsat got their W2A bird up a month back and will shortly offer their "exciting and innovative range of entertainment" to people on the move or indeed stuck in a jam on the M50 .

That is because a CAR is a separate "premises" to your house under the definition of premises in Section 140 . Of course you can always park your Car IN your house when the inspector calls and say Nyah Boo out the front window at him

[crawler]

Oddly enough....or maybe not....the VERY same thing crossed my mind the day RTE player launched.....I thought I was being paranoid!

[Sponge Bob]

Of course the carriers must apply to become Issuing Agents too . An Post sold 1.43m licences last year in a country with 1.6m households and probably 130k businesses with a TV .

Thats 300k licences up for grabs if you have a database

[babaloushka]

The coalman passes my door twice a day and I am 'capable' of stopping him to ask for a bag - but I don't do so and he doesn't get paid. While I am covered because I do have a household TV license, if I only had my PC/laptop (which I don't use to watch TV) I'd be very narked to have to license it because it was now 'capable' of receiving TV programmes through the RTE player.

[vibe666]

it's a good job they don't have a separate radio licence or they'd be taxing people with fillings* in their teeth!

*yes, i know it was mythbusted, but you never know.

[[-0-]]

RTE should just give everyone who has paid their license an account on rte.ie so that they can access the RTE player. This seems more logical than what they are trying to do.

If they think I'm paying a TV License fee when I have no TV, they have another thing coming. I never use the RTE player, so they would need to prove I was using it in order to charge me for this.

[Akrasia]

Originally Posted by vibe666

it's a good job they don't have a separate radio licence or they'd be taxing people with fillings* in their teeth!

*yes, i know it was mythbusted, but you never know.

so this now means if you bring a 'midband' 3g dongle with you camping with your wifi enabled IPOD,technically you require a tv licence for your 30 euro lidl tent?

[paulm17781]

Originally Posted by [-0-]

If they think I'm paying a TV License fee when I have no TV, they have another thing coming. I never use the RTE player, so they would need to prove I was using it in order to charge me for this.

First off, I agree with you.

AFAIK, you have to have a license if you own any equipment capable of receiving television. Now, I think this is nonsense classifying a PC as a TV but I think that's what they're doing and I don't think there's anything we can do to stop it.

[watty]

It should have to meet minimum quality contraints of Resolution and Content before they call it TV

Actually RTE doesn't matter because if you have only FTA satellite (No Irish TV) you need a licence. Someone somewhere does decent TV quality on the Internet. (I get quite good German TV via BB), so yes, if your BB is good enough and has "broadcast" quality Live TV , even now already, technically you need a TV licence. It's not just about if you watch RTE, but a Tax on TV viewing, however it's "received".

Midband (and most BB) isn't actually good enough for full resolution (say 544 x 576 as that's what ITV uses on Satellite) @ 25 i FPS even in MPEG4.

I think only "real" IPTV/ VOD should count as TV watching. Not rubbish YouTube quality of RTE iPlayer.


BB connections with less than 6Mbps peak time download speed should be exempt as it's not really practical to have a "proper" TV service and use the Internet on less. At least that's what we should tell them.

[watty]

Originally Posted by Akrasia

so this now means if you bring a 'midband' 3g dongle with you camping with your wifi enabled IPOD,technically you require a tv licence for your 30 euro lidl tent?

As long as it runs on it's own batteries it counts as Portable TV and comes under your home TV licence. It when it's main powered at another location that counts.

[[-0-]]

Originally Posted by paulm17781

First off, I agree with you.

AFAIK, you have to have a license if you own any equipment capable of receiving television. Now, I think this is nonsense classifying a PC as a TV but I think that's what they're doing and I don't think there's anything we can do to stop it.

Without trying to sound over the top, the law is a minefield and could easily be challenged. Firstly, how do they define what a computer is? Believe it or not, my toilet is on the Internet. I have attached a sensor and an ethernet cable to the toilet, and every time the toilet flushes it tweets on twitter. Technically, this toilet is capable of 'receiving television'. - but it cannot interpret it. Now, if I was to add a few more mods to the toilet.. a very small version of linux on a chip, with X windows and a web browser... could they charge me? RTE's Player uses Flash... what if I don't have flash enabled in my browser? Technically, I do not have software capable of 'receiving television'.

Maybe that's a bad example, but if they want to attempt to charge me for this, then they better be prepared to prove I was using the service.

Also, what if my mate has paid his license.. he comes over to my house and uses my Internet connection on his laptop to watch the RTE Player. Am I liable? He has already paid his license and I don't have a computer that is capable of playing it.

[AntiRip]

Originally Posted by [-0-]

I have attached a sensor and an ethernet cable to the toilet, and every time the toilet flushes it tweets on twitter.

You tweet when you're on the toilet!

[bk]

Originally Posted by [-0-]

Believe it or not, my toilet is on the Internet. I have attached a sensor and an ethernet cable to the toilet, and every time the toilet flushes it tweets on twitter.

That's awesome

[ceret]

Can you get the RTÉ player to work on Linux? In which case it doesn't count for me as an Ubuntu user.

[paulm17781]

Originally Posted by [-0-]

Without trying to sound over the top, the law is a minefield and could easily be challenged. Firstly, how do they define what a computer is? Believe it or not, my toilet is on the Internet. I have attached a sensor and an ethernet cable to the toilet, and every time the toilet flushes it tweets on twitter. Technically, this toilet is capable of 'receiving television'. - but it cannot interpret it. Now, if I was to add a few more mods to the toilet.. a very small version of linux on a chip, with X windows and a web browser... could they charge me? RTE's Player uses Flash... what if I don't have flash enabled in my browser? Technically, I do not have software capable of 'receiving television'.

Maybe that's a bad example, but if they want to attempt to charge me for this, then they better be prepared to prove I was using the service.

Also, what if my mate has paid his license.. he comes over to my house and uses my Internet connection on his laptop to watch the RTE Player. Am I liable? He has already paid his license and I don't have a computer that is capable of playing it.

I know what you mean, I do agree. I'm sure they'll have a definition of a PC, I don't know what, I'm not a lawyer or politician, but they'll have one. Once you have one, then you'll need a TV license. I'd say iPods etc will be covered too.

A TV license belongs to an address not a person so you would be liable, same as him bringing a TV over.