Options
TV Licence and mobile tv
L_Silverwolf
Posts: 770
Forum Member
✭✭
My MIL died in 2006, and left her house to my hubby. It's been unoccupied since then, as we've been clearing out her belongings, plus bringing the house up to date with an extension and a fresh coat of paint, ready to rent it out until we can move there in a couple of years time. Needless to say, there's no TV licence covering the property at the moment, as the place is completely empty.
Obviously, we've been getting the threatening letters - which I first was horrified by - but now they've lost their impact & I just ignore them. However, I was wondering - am I legally able to watch TV on my mobile phone in that property? I checked the TV Licensing site, and there's no mention of it. I'm supposing I must be, as I can watch telly on it anywhere...
Obviously, we've been getting the threatening letters - which I first was horrified by - but now they've lost their impact & I just ignore them. However, I was wondering - am I legally able to watch TV on my mobile phone in that property? I checked the TV Licensing site, and there's no mention of it. I'm supposing I must be, as I can watch telly on it anywhere...
0
Comments
Soon as you plug it into the mains/aerial in an unlicenced property, I think you're not covered.
K
So it matters not whether I am in an unlicenced house or siting in a public park. However to use it via a mains lead ANYWHERE, except my own licenced dwelling , would be illegal. I get Kenny's point that if I were in someone else's house I would be covered by their licence, presuming they did have one.
There is another clause that allows the use of a TV in a touring caravan, providing the TV at the licenced address is not being used at the time.
Clearly both of these categories are uninforcable without a gross intrusion of privacy. With a pocket TV you can use it anywhere outside of your home, but not seemingly with a battery charger in line. Crazy or what! There is no mention of antenna connections, just internal batteries.
Oooh - that's interesting, Martin, as our licence for our home is in Mr Silverwolf's name.
So, to clarify, if it's plugged into the charger as the time, or docked, then it's not legal? Although technically the mains power is recharging the battery, not powering it I suppose...
Totally mad. And as you say, hard to enforce.
I think very few people have total understanding of the rules, they are so bizarre.
Clearly in this case putting the phone on to charge in that house would mean "receiving equipment" was plugged in (no longer battery powered) so there is a grey area about even charging the phone there, even if you weren't watching the TV element at that time! Just as in the same way as if you had TV set in the same house but happened not to be watching it at the time.
My interpretation of the rules is that the very act of recharging your TV-cable phone (ie plugging TV-capable equipment into the mains at that address) would bizarrely leave you breaching the TV licencing law and be an illegal act! Crazy!
If the 'TV' you were watching on your mobile phone wasn't live, broadcast TV (and odds are it wouldn't be) then you wouldn't need a licence for it at all.
I am unsure about the spanner, but a vaild point indeed.
If TVL will presume that everyone viewing on a small screen TV are doing so quite legally, even if they are not, that's fine by me. Without stop and search powers, plus not knowing where any portable TV 'lives' I can see a loophole to aid illicit viewing, to the detriment of other licence payers.
In fact it's perfectly legal to be on the electoral register at more than one address. It's just illegal to vote at more than one address within the same body (IE 1 vote in a general election, and one in each council you're registered at).
Ultimatly they'll have defined living at an address (just don't nessiarily quote it everywhere) and whilst it wouldn't be justified to try and prove it in this case, it's not that common anyway. If any law that had grey areas was scrapped then vertually every law would have to be. There is nothing black and white.