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/bills28/bills/2008/2908/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! :pac:

*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

vibe666 wrote: »

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

*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

[-0-] wrote: »

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. :mad:

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

Akrasia wrote: »

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-]

paulm17781 wrote: »

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. :mad:

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

[-0-] wrote: »

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!:D

bk

[-0-] wrote: »

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

[-0-] wrote: »

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.

[-0-]

ceret wrote: »

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

Yes, just install the flash player for firefox.

paulm17781

ceret wrote: »

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

It only doesn't count if they specified Windows PC (please let them do this) but if you can view it, they'll expect you to pay for it.

Akrasia

[-0-] wrote: »

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.

ya think they would, more likely they'd issue a summons and you'd have to prove you weren't using it (something ridiculous like proving that you never installed flash and had a firewall that blocked all streaming media)

Selkies

Imagine I have a laptop but no broadband, what happens when I connect to someone elses wireless network legally and watch rte videos.

If they want to put a tax on the internet, fine! Then create an internet tax!

[-0-]

paulm17781 wrote: »

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

That's interesting. So lets say a failed firmware upgrade from my ISP disables my wireless security on my router and as a result, my neighbour uses my DSL line to watch the RTE Player while I'm at work and I don't realise the wireless security is disabled. Surely my ISP would be liable.

They really need to 'tighten' the law on this, and if they don't I will be happy to challenge it. They chose to broadcast without giving each TV License holder an account on the site.

Heathen

GRRRR this really annoys me...

I have a production studio that i am soon to be installing a 10mb line, however it will not be used for internet, its merely a way of me remote linking to my studio as i do a lot of work offsite and need to be able to access the 6 computers that run in the studio, and for sending and recieving workloads to and from the studio.. why on earth should i have to pay for a TV licence for my little studio? its in an industrial unit not a residence and the line will be used for WORK not play!! i have a BB connection at home for watching stuff.. this one is purely for working.. i presume its going to be yet another law passed without a vote by those clowns up in the dail!!

Rip Off Ireland at its best!! :mad:

hightower1

and how about if they ever get flash based apps sorted on the iPhone, you'll need a tv licence for that then also.....

Oh and your psp.... basically anything you can watch tv streams on needs a licence. lol, Yet another example of people in power creating rules about things they actually know very little about.

Completely unrealistic idea that is dead before its even started, I am not worried in the slightest.

Heathen

hightower1 wrote: »

Completely unrealistic idea that is dead before its even started, I am not worried in the slightest.

i completely aggree with you man, but unfortunatly once them gimps up here smell the green they will rubber stamp the approval of it and we can like it or lump it.. as usual... :mad:

i was of the understanding that they are servants of the people? not the other way around? well i stand corrected.... again!

paulm17781

[-0-] wrote: »

That's interesting. So lets say a failed firmware upgrade from my ISP disables my wireless security on my router and as a result, my neighbour uses my DSL line to watch the RTE Player while I'm at work and I don't realise the wireless security is disabled. Surely my ISP would be liable.

They really need to 'tighten' the law on this, and if they don't I will be happy to challenge it. They chose to broadcast without giving each TV License holder an account on the site.

Your focusing in the wrong area. It's not about iPLayer, wireless, firmware etc. If you have the facility to receive TV (by their definition) in your home. You need a TV license. I think it is total BS and you are right to challenge it. I would expect and internet connection would be enough to need a TV license or anything that can receive the internet (possibly). The failed firmware update (example) is irrelevant. Once you have the connection you'll probably need the license.

Sponge Bob

It is entirely up to Minister Ryan to define the schedule of devices , possession of one of which shall render a household liable to purchasing a TV licence . That power is left to him and him alone by law.

Minister Ryan will gladly clarify whether iPhones or ubuntu boxes will be on his list or not, it is unfair to expect anybody to purchase a currently non licenced device without knowing whether this will render them liable to an annual TV licence of €170 thereafter .

You need but email him !

Capt'n Midnight

“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;

It refers to Broadcast, so downloading a repeat would not count.

General reception I think excludes streaming - but am not too sure about that.

And besides most video phones that can receive DVB-T would need a license too and I don't think they are enforcing it.

On linux you can easily setup VLC to stream TV in ASCII , so you could watch it on a VT52


I think the intention was to target devices like TV tuner cards which have always been covered by the license terms.

But what is the story with MPEG2 cards, as they won't pick up Irish DTT ?? :pac:

Capt'n Midnight

The number of phone lines are falling so the phone dB no longer lists the vast majority of households and besides the people too stingy to pay for a license would probably tend to cancel the line too.

Does this mean the fee will be going up in the near future :rolleyes:

Wcool

Wouldn't it be better just to abolish this whole idea of that 20th century idea that is a TV license?
And pay RTE through a fixed government subsidy who get the money from general tax?

No more extra bureaucratic, expensive apparatsjik to check if you have a license, and maybe a chance to do deals with neighbouring countries to share each others IP geolocation databases?

It might also stop the rot on silly taxes and enforcement? What's next? iPod tax? public wifi tax?

dxhound2005

Well times change and technology changes and we will always have taxes. I would totally agree that abolishing the licence fee in favour of funding from direct taxation would be better.

However if there is going to be a licence fee system it seems to me very sensible to write the regulations to say every possible device is covered rather than trying to list what is included now and having that superseded by some new technology which might come along. Any Minister who would try to apply the fee to say an MP3 player at the moment would not get away with it and I think we have to trust that the law will be applied in a common sense fashion.

Cabaal

ceret wrote: »

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

It;ll work its flash....an iphone however won't work

Pa ElGrande

If you don't want to pay, how feasible is it to block the RTE domain and ip address range on your router firewall. You then have a device that is not capable of receiving any "broadcasts" from RTE.


inetnum: 89.207.56.0 - 89.207.56.255
netname: IE-RTE-IPV4-NETBLK1

http://www.db.ripe.net/whois?form_type=simple&full_query_string=&searchtext=89.207.56.140&do_search=Search

Sponge Bob

Just complain to Minsiter Ryan instead through http://www.eamonryan.ie/ or www.oir.ie or www.dcenr.ie , ideally all three .

hightower1

So a tv license is to cover the overheads of the national broadcaster to some degree seeing as if you have a tv set you have the ability to receive their "free" to air signal. Never really an issue for me seeing as its our own national broadcaster but by this logic the point of a computer/tv license is that because you can receive tv on your computer you still need the license?

Does this mean that now be can receive tv from all over the globe as a standard on your computer and not just rte's signal that we would be funding ALL national broadcasters then lol. Somehow I cant see the government dividing up the cash to send out globally lol!

Its an utterly ridiculous idea, I realise we all need to dig in an get the country through this downturn no matter who's fault it is but that's what the pay levy is about. Not coming up with ideas like this... the brain child of late night "turning the sofa cushions upside down for spare cash" dail meetings.

Sponge Bob

They have 2 choices before them this year and will take the easy one as always.

1. Increase the TV Licence by maybe €20 in a recession , that will cause mayhem. RTE are bang in the middle of an unusually large Capex spend as they roll out DTT nationwide at present .

or

2. Improve the revenue from the existing base and bring more people into the net . That is now feasible post Broadcasting Act 2009 as they appoint more collection agents like 3 Ireland and eircom and reduce their reliance on An Post as the only collection agent .

Of course what Ryan will not tell you is that you will INEVITABLY receive TV Licence payment demands fom ALL of them at the same time and will henceforth spend ages beating them and their debt collectors away from the door every year .

If you have direct debits in place you will be goosed x 3 and will have to claim it all back .....Imagine the mess that is eFlow, repeated.

Cabaal

Its abit of a cop out, there are loads of business in Ireland that have no TV or VCR or ariel or anything capable of receiving TV signals but now because they have "Broadband" and a PC or Laptop they now have to shell out for a license.

Its a joke

jor el

I have never not had a TV licence in the last 14 years, and the first one of these companies to bill me looking for more, will receive a bill from me for the inconvenience.

As for whether you could avoid if you don't/can't/won't use the RTE live application, I can only imagine that if they apply the same rules to this as to current TV rules, then you won't be able to avoid it. Remember that if you have a TV, even one that cannot receive RTE, then you have to have a licence. If you have a computer (of any variety) and Internet connection (but no TV), then I'd would be sure they'll want you to have a licence.

As said, anyone concerned should contact Minister Ryan, and let him know your feelings.

Capt'n Midnight

Pa ElGrande wrote: »

If you don't want to pay, how feasible is it to block the RTE domain and ip address range on your router firewall. You then have a device that is not capable of receiving any "broadcasts" from RTE.

That defence doesn't work
people have tried to get out of TV licence by claiming the TV was modified to render it incapable of reception, the ruling IIRC is if you can undo the mod's then they don't count.

Sparks

Nice to see we're serious about rolling out high-speed broadband then...

vibe666

it's just another way to tax people to generate more revenue for the government. if it wasn't this it would be something else.

i can see how they are thinking though. not that i like the idea of paying even more `than i already am to get on the net, but technically speaking, any PC with a broadband connection is able to to receive the RTE player now so it's just as capable of receiving a TV signal as a TV is.

i'm not sure how they're going to approach the mobile phones though, since a lot of those are now wifi equipped and capable of playing back flash based video and the like, not to mention some coming with digital tv tuners built in now too.

Sparks

How exactly are they going to differentiate between those who (shock, horror) download (for argument's sake, let's say perfectly legitimate) video footage using some sort of p2p protocol; people who listen to streaming audio like the bbc radio stuff; people who watch streaming video from outside the state which the state can have no sane claim on for tax purposes (like youtube); and people who watch RTE online?

BendiBus

I didn't think the definition of 'broadcast' included any type of streaming, as this is a 'narrowcast' from one ip address to another. i.e nothing gets cast until it's explicitly asked for.

I'll believe this when I see people getting done for not having a licence for their laptop.

Cabaal

Its a essentially a "Broadband Tax" because if you have a PC and dialup you can't use the stream and can claim is not capable of receiving it,

However if you have Broadband and are running some variant of Linux or another OS that can't view the stream they will claim its still capable of receiving it you just got to undo the "modifications" by changing to another OS.

I fail to see how this will encourage any small business thats still on dialup to change to Broadband because the second they do they have to fork out an extra 160e a year for the honour.

What a fantastic system.

Cabaal

Sparks wrote: »

How exactly are they going to differentiate between those who (shock, horror) download (for argument's sake, let's say perfectly legitimate) video footage using some sort of p2p protocol; people who listen to streaming audio like the bbc radio stuff; people who watch streaming video from outside the state which the state can have no sane claim on for tax purposes (like youtube); and people who watch RTE online?

They won't, if your PC is "capable" of receiving the RTE stream then thats it, if you never visit the RTE website that don't care (same as if you never watch RTE on your TV)

Sparks

That's the part I have a problem with - I mean, how in the name of little blue apples do they think they have any moral or ethical right to claim tax on youtube?

vibe666

its not tax on youtube. it's tax on a device capable of receiving a TV signal, just like it's always been.

only now they've broadened the definition of what exactly that is by including newer technologies that have come out since the licence in it's current form was introduced.

nobody in the goverment is going to differentiate between youtube, or the RTE player or someones big stash of pr0n, it's all the same to them, so it's all taxable.

it's another one of those "if you don't like it vote for someone else" type deals.

inevitably nobody is going to like it because it'll mean more tax, but unless there's a major change in government or major protests it's not likely to change. i don't think a bunch of pasty faced keyboard warriors like us objecting to it here is going to make a huge amount of difference.

Sleipnir

vibe666 wrote: »

inevitably nobody is going to like it because it'll mean more tax, but unless there's a major change in government or major protests it's not likely to change. i don't think a bunch of pasty faced keyboard warriors like us objecting to it here is going to make a huge amount of difference.

But for people who already posess a T.V. license for their T.V., it won't mean more tax. Or will it....?

Sparks

vibe666 wrote: »

its not tax on youtube. it's tax on a device capable of receiving a TV signal, just like it's always been.

That's a nice thought, but the problem is that it's not the same at all. The TV licence tax followed naturally on from the original Radio licence; but in both those cases, a national station was set up because otherwise few people could take advantage of the medium.

Here, we have an established medium and because a new content provider appears, we're being taxed regardless of whether or not we avail of that new content (or even, as in my case, if we're unable to do so). Which means this is the equivalent of me starting a new blog, then taxing everyone who can open a socket on port 80, regardless of whether they ever do, or if they do, whether they ever read my blog.

Not only that, but there's nothing the government is providing here in terms of the medium, nor is there anything they own that we're using to use the medium. With TV/Radio, the government (in theory at least) owns the spectrum and control it - it's a national resource and we're taxed for using it. Here, it's not - everyone who has broadband is going over the 'national' telecoms network, but that was privatised in the Eircom IPO, so it's not government property. Neither are the international links. So where's their claim to tax here?

And while this is just a bunch of pasty faced keyboard junkies bitching right now, I hear that that e-voting thing didn't do so well, and that wasn't an issue that could potentially charge 160-odd euro to every company in Ireland that is either in IT or which uses IT. E-voting didn't risk stunting the rollout of broadband, nor did it run the risk of damaging the economy. And it still got hosed.

christophicus

This might be a stupid question. But how are they going to prove that you actually have a PC/Laptop? Sure if they come to the door, you can just deny them entry ? And if they are using BB accounts ( is it legal for the ISPs to release account info to the government ? ) some people could technically argue that they may have broadband, but nothing that they can actually watch TV with, eg nintendo DS or something of that ilk.

merlie

This is getting ridiculous. RTE just want more cash to boost them through the recession and are looking at putting a licence for anyone viewing the web player on their website.

I really think that if they decide to introduce a license then I would prefer a broadband tax which would be billed along with your broadband fee. This I would much prefer.

I prefer TV3 to RTE anyday and they are not in the licence fold but you dont hear them grumbling they just get on with it.

In any case we are not getting good broadband speeds in this country

Sparks

You can't deny access to tv licence inspectors legally.

The more I think about this the angrier the stupidity makes me.
Hell, you can't even watch all the RTE programmes on their site (even if the player works, which it doesn't for me), they don't have the rights to 'broadcast' them online. :mad: