The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address
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E-mail addresses used to login to the iPlayer will be matched with records kept by TV Licensing to see if individuals are dodging the £145.50 fee to watch content, the BBC said. However, people still pay their telly licence in a variety of ways, including via debit or credit card over the phone, by post, or over-the-counter.
Presumably, the logic is that if someone is watching the iPlayer via a laptop or device, then they'll also be paying their licence fee online. But the BBC is also seemingly relying on those individuals to use the same e-mail address for the iPlayer and TV licensing.
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@RaceProUK this couldn't possibly go wrong because I would then have to use my girlfriend's password to log in when we want to watch something.
Fortunately there's now a lack of content worth watching on the BBC.
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@RaceProUK can you at least dodge it at all? Over yonder it's damned near impossible, we're down to the point where anything with a screen or a speaker falls into "this can play either TV or radio transmissions, PAY!"
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@Onyx said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
@RaceProUK can you at least dodge it at all?
Honestly, I have no idea
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@Onyx they should just shut the BBC down
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cough cough
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@Onyx said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
can you at least dodge it at all?
License enforcers have no right to enter your property, despite what they tell you, so if you don't watch the BBC, all you need to do is tell them that if they ever try to strongarm you into paying
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@Jaloopa go further and formally withdraw right of access to your doorstep, then they can't even knock on your door...
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@Arantor said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
Fortunately there's now a lack of content worth watching on the BBC.
For me, there is still something worth watching, though the list is getting smaller every year. In fact, this is the list as it currently stands:
- Doctor Who
- Robot Wars
- QI
And I'm not sure how long Doctor Who will remain on that list.
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I don't even remember if it was me or my wife who paid for this year's TV license. I think it was her, and it makes more sense for us to use her BBC account as I'll just make one with a KeePass password and they're a bitch to type on a smart TV or set top box
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It seems to me like this "TV license" is just a roundabout way to implement subscription TV.
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@anonymous234 said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
It seems to me like this "TV license" is just a roundabout way to implement subscription TV.
The difference is, the BBC doesn't get commercial revenue: unlike, say BSkyB, the BBC isn't allowed commercial advertising.
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@anonymous234 said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
It seems to me like this "TV license" is just a roundabout way to implement subscription TV.
It's worse here. The difference is that you can't own a TV and not pay the fee on the grounds of not watching any public TV channels. Everything that can be used to watch public TV is assumed to be used to watch public TV.
Of course the actual enforceability of the law varies wildly, and Polish lawmakers are still trying to figure out how to make it a flat tax without actually making it a tax.
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@Maciejasjmj said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
Of course the actual enforceability of the law varies wildly, and Polish lawmakers are still trying to figure out how to make it a flat tax without actually making it a tax.
Have they not spoken to the UK Parliament yet? Because that pretty much describes the British TV license.
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You don't need to enter an email address to use iPlayer. At the moment, you don't need any kind of account - you just click a box that says "I have a TV licence". It's geo-barred.
Also, since when did online streaming services requiring a login to verify you've paid for them, become "bullying" instead of "absolutely standard industry practice."? If this counts as bullying, I assume the next thing will be to brand Netflix's subscriber model as terrorism.
(I say this as a licence paying, UK resident, get_iplayer user. I admit I am slightly annoyed they keep breaking get_iplayer by removing all the common sources metadata, making it have to scrape the data.)
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@gwowen said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
You don't need to enter an email address to use iPlayer.
Yet. However, as the article states, iPlayer will be updated to require it.
@gwowen said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
Also, since when did online streaming services requiring a login to verify you've paid for them, become "bullying" instead of "absolutely standard industry practice."?
- Clickbait topic title
- Typically, account-based online streaming services have you pay for the service through the same account you watch with. However, with the proposed changes to iPlayer, this is not the case: the payment is entirely separate from the account itself.
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@RaceProUK said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
The difference is, the BBC doesn't get commercial revenue: unlike, say BSkyB, the BBC isn't allowed commercial advertising.
Sounds kind of like our PBS - except you're forced to "donate".
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@dcon said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
Sounds kind of like our PBS - except you're forced to "donate".
That's... not entirely inaccurate, come to think of it
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They should just give up and make it a fucking tax already. The US already routinely has taxes for public radio/television, schools, libraries, etc.; the fact that you don't actually use those things has never stopped lawmakers here from deciding to tax you to fund them.
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I don't have my TV connected to an aerial, I don't pay the BBC anything anymore.
Their programs were some of the best 15 years ago but now it is pure shite.
Watch a documentary done today compared to 10 years ago and it is utter shite.
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@lucas1 Wait until it reaches the level of Dutch TV, you’ll be wishing for the BBC of today.
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@Gurth I don't watch it, I don't pay for it.
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@lucas1 I suspect that the issue is the current crop of directors and producers, who seem to think that absolutely everything has to be converted into utter mind-rot in order to be aired at all. OTOH, I don't know this because I stopped watching pretty much all TV years ago.
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I don't bother paying the TV licence anymore and for the very reason that I don't watch live TV or anything on the BBC.
Since the rise of Netflix and Amazon I usually only watch this. My wife is from South America and via Kodi We stream Brazilian TV.
My 2 televisions are not connected to an aerial or tuned either.
Sure, I get the letters about enforcement and threats of a fine and I always write back telling them I don't need one.
I'm not anti-BBC, I do believe they have a number of decent services but I'll be arsed if I'm paying to have them continually fund shite like EastEnders. BBC should move on and become subscription based or open the doors to advertising instead of wasting time trying to bully people into paying a license.
I'll probably never pay it again.
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@Gurth I lived in Holland for a while, I gather the license fee is factored into your cable subscription. Honestly, I didn't find Dutch TV that bad.
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@Iain-Short said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
I lived in Holland for a while
Rather you than me :)
I gather the license fee is factored into your cable subscription. Honestly, I didn't find Dutch TV that bad.
Aside from bad acting, quiz shows that can’t get the balance between difficulty, humour, interest, and seriousness right, talent contests, news reports that feel like they’re aimed at children, not-funny humour, media darlings paraded on as if everyone knows them, general navel-gazing, and assorted other things that escape me at the moment, I’d say it’s not that bad, no.
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This post is deleted!
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@Gurth haha..Sorry, you're right, it's awful. I appeared on Brabant Toppers once,..maybe that's why I didn't think TV was so bad
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@Jaloopa said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
@Onyx said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
can you at least dodge it at all?
License enforcers have no right to enter your property, despite what they tell you, so if you don't watch the BBC, all you need to do is tell them that if they ever try to strongarm you into paying
If you're receiving any sort of live broadcast from any UK channel, then you still have to pay. You do not have to have a TV to fulfill this criteria.
OTOH, if - for example - you have a TV used only for playing games and not used to receive a live broadcast, then (unless you otherwise pass the test above) you do not have to pay.
@RaceProUK said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
And I'm not sure how long Doctor Who will remain on that list.
I've found it to have been particularly dire since Capaldi took over; more to do with the scripts than him however.
@RaceProUK said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
the BBC isn't allowed commercial advertising
Doesn't stop them from advertising nevertheless. "News" items covering BBC programmes e.g.
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@PJH Magnificent blankness on the example front… :p
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@Iain-Short said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
I appeared on Brabant Toppers once
Brabant? I thought you said you’d lived in Holland? (Regardless, my earlier comment applies in this case too.)
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@PJH said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
I've found it to have been particularly dire since Capaldi took over; more to do with the scripts than him however.
Calpaldi is wasted on that show from the little I've seen.
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@Iain-Short said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
Sure, I get the letters about enforcement and threats of a fine and I always write back telling them I don't need one.
Whenever I don't need a TV License, I let them keep sending me threats. I know they're not going to even try and prosecute me, and I refuse to help them on principle because their tactics are immoral and almost certainly illegal (they say a lot of things that are technically technically if you read very carefully not untrue, but no-one could reasonably argue that it's not designed to mislead).
It should be noted that this isn't actually the BBC but the company they employ, and I did read a while back that they were intending to investigate this company's behaviour.
I kind of snapped when I rang them up to say I'd moved and didn't need to renew my TV license because we had one for our new address that was in someone else's name. I told them my address and they asked for the postcode. I hadn't memorised my new postcode yet and told them so: they insisted I had to tell them. Note: anyone can look up the postcode of any address through the post office website; I'd given them enough information to uniquely identify my address and knowing the postcode wouldn't be any kind of proof that I lived there.
Now if the chap on the phone had politely said that the form he was filling out required a postcode, I would have let him wait while I dug out some document with it on. But what he actually says is "This isn't going to go away, you know."
I hung up on him. I'd called them, mind you: I wasn't being investigated (and note that even if they had called me, I'd have been under no obligation to speak to them), I'd taken time out of my day to help them update their records. Since then, I've bought a TV license when I needed one and deliberately avoided contacting them otherwise.
Incidentally, it did go away. They never contacted me again about that address. If you show a bit of nous they give up and harass someone more vulnerable: they really don't give a damn about whether you actually need a TV license, just about whether they can get you to buy one.
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@CarrieVS said in The British Bullying Corporation is cracking down on people who use more than one email address:
company they employ
Capita. I had a summer job at the TV Licensing offices 15 years ago and there is a culture of arseholery. It's a private firm, they've got targets and they don't have many scruples when it comes to meeting them. From what I could tell the "inspectors" had traffic warden syndrome - if in doubt issue a ticket/summons and it's no longer their problem, the courts can sort it out later.
I've dealt with Crapita before that job and after, professionally and as a customer, and I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick.