To Wonder How The Government Plans to close the "iPlayer loophole"

[wasonthelist]

First of all, I have no problem and no objection to this.

But how will they do it?

Just pass a law and expect everyone to behave?

Or something else - can't see how it's going to work practically.

Fair enough. Just going by advertising I've been sent that included iplayer as part of the package. I assumed they would have been legally stopped from including it in advertising otherwise.

The onus is on them to prove (and they can using technology) you are receiving TV and not just capable of it.

What technology? Detector vans are a hoax.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2445153/Are-TV-detector-vans-just-cunning-trick-For-decades-claimed-trap-licence-cheats-In-fact-theyve-led-single-prosecution.html

Seems they use them, just no one's sure how.

My first point stands though.

What technology? Detector vans are a hoax.

There are techniques for recovering what is being displayed on remote displays, and it's something the military spend a lot of effort on. However, it's highly unlikely that the BBC are able to get hold of large amounts of highly classified equipment; obviously, knowing the detection sensitivity of the equipment allows you to design countermeasures, and possession of the equipment allows you to test your countermeasures. Detector vans were probably hoaxes all along (the claims that you can detect the intermediate frequency in superheterodyne receivers is plausible, but doing direction finding on it within the confines of a van doesn't seem likely. Today they certainly are (does even the hoax still exist?)

To detect that you are watching live TV via the Internet would require a RIPA warrant. The metadata wouldn't be enough to get a conviction, and the content would (a) require a warrant under the home secretaries personal signature, and Theresa has better things to do than piss about with TV licensing and (b) wouldn't hold up in court, as intercept evidence is inadmissible anyway,.

My first point stands though.

I agree - I was astounded (given the relatively high level of convictions) to find that the majority of the historical cases seem to rely on a mixture of confessions/self incrimination, lying by the officers and the ignorance of the Law by Courts.