Charging for iPlayer

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 10:06:23 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

I think it was you

No it was me.

that suggested "all equipment". (See above). If
anything like this ever does make its way into law, it'll need to be a
bit more specific than that.

A wanted to give a one-liner, not something with the legalese of a green
paper!

The current law doesn't cover all television apparatus, does it? Only
apparatus *installed* to receive TV ... so I wouldn't expect a revised
law to include all computers, tablets, phones, washing machines etc, any
more than the current law includes a TV connected only to a CCTV camera.

Fair enough, and when I said "anything with a screen" I assumed it
would be taken to mean anything with a screen which is used to watch
material provided by somebody else, and even that would only be an
outline of what an actual law would say, if it ever got that far.

They currently pop-up a warning in iPlayer to say you need a licence for
live programmes, but not for catch-up, so why not just get it extended
to catch-up?

As for catching people out, presumably they already log IP addresses
(not infallible) and plant cookies to track devices and what they've
watched, so we won't need PC detector vans ...

There is a very worrying trend towards snoopage being enabled by
default, simply because the equipment we use for nearly all
communications nowadays happens to be capable of it, and not because
anybody has come up with any moral justification for it or offered it
for consideration through any democratic process. It's quite startling
to see drama plots from only a few years ago in which people can walk
about or drive cars in public places without being recorded on CCTV,
or hold telephone conversations without anybody knowing about them.
Already there seem to be certain opinions it isn't possible to express
out loud, at least if you're a celebrity, a politician or a scientist,
so I wonder how long this blight on freedom will spread to the rest of
us, and whose approval we will have to seek before we say anything?

It's not paranoia if they're *really* spying on you...

Rod.

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 12:38:40 +0200, Martin wrote:

Something like an annual licence fee perhaps?

Yes, I just want the current scheme to cover all equipment.

Really? You want to be obliged to pay the BBC just to be allowed to
look at anything with a screen?

You prefer to pay somebody like Murdoch?

There's plenty of TV material to watch without paying Murdoch.

Rod.

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 09:27:05 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article , Paul Ratcliffe
wrote:
On Mon, 06 Jul 2015 15:18:10 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

The simplest approach is to treat it like roads, pavements, etc.
Assume everyone directly or indirectly makes use of them, so charge
each household the same amount regardless.

What's it got to do with households? People use services, not houses.
Charge the people. Same for the roads and other services.

household is not a synonym for house.

Jim

True.

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dic...lish/household

household
the people living together in one house collectively

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

In article , Martin
wrote:
The advantage of a 'flat per household per year charge' is that it
avoids all the effort/expense/argument that otherwise would end up
devoted to trying to determine who watched what, when, where, etc.

Even simpler is to fund public broadcasting from the infra structure
like the Dutch do.

The potential disadvantage being that it could allow the Government of the
day a more direct control over funding in shorter timescales.

That would save £150 million a year in enforcing licence payments plus
the cost of time wasting prosecutions in overloaded courts.

Which could instead be charged to those found by courts to have failed to
obtain a license. The fines/levy costs on those who can pay may help cover
the costs of those who can't.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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On 07/07/2015 12:53, Peter Duncanson wrote:
True.

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dic...lish/household

household
the people living together in one house collectively

Interesting definition.

In that it excludes any families living in flats...

Andy

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 14:37:40 +0200, Martin wrote:

Something like an annual licence fee perhaps?

Yes, I just want the current scheme to cover all equipment.

Really? You want to be obliged to pay the BBC just to be allowed to
look at anything with a screen?

You prefer to pay somebody like Murdoch?

There's plenty of TV material to watch without paying Murdoch.

ATM

Longer than that. Murdoch owns a lot but not the entire planet.

Rod.

In article ,
says...

On 06/07/2015 22:43, Yellow wrote:
In article ,
says...

If you just gave all licence holders a code - or allowed them to use
the licence number - how would you prevent fraud?

How do Netflix prevent fraud?


They limit the number of concurrent logins to whatever the subscription
is for.

My son has a sub for 6 concurrent users and a few months ago found he
couldn't log on. It transpired that a young family member had given the
password to someone else, who had given the password to someone else, etc.

He simply changed the main password and they were all blocked. I don't
suppose Netflix actually mind who exactly are watching, they have taken
the money anyway.

So I am sure the BBC could do something similar.

The only problem I see though is all the smart tellys and related boxes
that have apps on them. I have a Humax PVR, a YouView box, a BluRay
player and an Amazon Firestick and they all include an IPlayer app.

In article ,
lid says...

On 06/07/2015 23:20, Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Mon, 06 Jul 2015 22:02:19 +0100, David Kennedy
wrote:

It was
announced this evening that the BBC are now looking into ways to charge for
the catch up services. That will also presumably apply to Channel 4 - ITV
already have theirs covered by the advertising - so I expect we'll ALL end up
paying more.

Paying more or watching less. If they demand more money for what I've
already got, I'll have to consider how badly I want it, and whether
it's worth paying for. I hope that at least we have that amount of
choice, i.e. not pay for programmes we don't want and watch something
else instead, which at the moment is not an option.

Rod.

It's all smoke and mirrors - as it was when water meters were introduced,
everyone ends up paying more.

I actually pay significantly less for my water, but I do take you point.

In article ,
says...

Roderick Stewart wrote:

I think it was you

No it was me.

that suggested "all equipment". (See above). If
anything like this ever does make its way into law, it'll need to be a
bit more specific than that.

A wanted to give a one-liner, not something with the legalese of a green
paper!

The current law doesn't cover all television apparatus, does it? Only
apparatus *installed* to receive TV ... so I wouldn't expect a revised
law to include all computers, tablets, phones, washing machines etc, any
more than the current law includes a TV connected only to a CCTV camera.

They currently pop-up a warning in iPlayer to say you need a licence for
live programmes, but not for catch-up, so why not just get it extended
to catch-up?

As for catching people out, presumably they already log IP addresses
(not infallible) and plant cookies to track devices and what they've
watched, so we won't need PC detector vans ...

But unless we have to start logging in to use IPlayer, they cannot
connect an IP address to a TV Licence.

On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:15:12 +0100, Vir Campestris
wrote:

On 07/07/2015 12:53, Peter Duncanson wrote:
True.

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dic...lish/household

household
the people living together in one house collectively

Interesting definition.

In that it excludes any families living in flats...

Yes. It is a brief and limited definition. The OED has a longer one:

The inhabitants of a house considered collectively; a group of
people (esp. a family) living together as a unit; a domestic
establishment (including any servants, attendants, etc.).

The second clause "...living together as a unit" would cover the
situation of more than one household in a house - each household in its
own separate flat.


--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)