The TV Licensing Authority, however, could find it hard to
police the extension to broadband use since it has no record of who
has and who has not bought a PC, nor how they use it.
Previously it was believed that only PCs with a broadcast card
designed specifically to pick up TV signals needed a licence. But
ahead of the BBC's streaming of live World Cup coverage TV
Licensing has said that it will prosecute in cases where TV is
watched on a PC regardless of how it is received.
In theory, thousands of company directors could be fined because
of the World Cup, since any workplace without a TV licence where
matches are watched via a broadband connection is now liable for
prosecution.
"Our policy would be to prosecute the representative within the
company who is responsible – for example a director, manager,
secretary or other similar corporate officer – at the time the
offence was committed," said a TV Licensing spokeswoman.
The BBC's live streaming of games could be a trigger for
prosecutions. "We make no distinction between those watching TV via
PC-TV, broadband or any other way," said the spokeswoman. "If you
are watching TV at the same time as it is being broadcast in the UK
you need to be covered by a valid licence."
Only one licence per company premises is needed regardless of
how many people there will watch TV, but any company without a
licence could be in breach without even knowing it, since desktop
users could watch a match without the company's knowledge.
The Licensing Authority operates by cross referencing equipment
sales against licence holders and chasing down those with equipment
but no licence. "We have a database of more than 28 million
addresses, so our enquiry officers know exactly which unlicensed
business premises to target," said a TV Licensing press release
But retailers are only forced to send information about buyers
of television equipment. Retailers told OUT-LAW that no request had
yet been received for information on purchases of computers, unless
those computers are fitted with TV cards.
"If a PC isn't sold with a PC-TV card then we wouldn't report
it," said a spokeswoman for Comet in a view informally confirmed at
another major electronics retailer. "There is no requirement to do
so. If TV Licensing tell us they need that information from us we
would have to comply. So far they have not."
If no computer purchase information is included in TV
Licensing's database, that means that it has no record of computer
users from which to search for licence breakers. TV Licensing also
told OUT-LAW that it did not know what proportion of UK businesses
hold a TV licence.
The authority for insisting on a licence comes from the
definition of TV equipment in the Wireless Telegraph Act 1967, last
amended by the Communications Act 2003 and subsequent orders of the
government related to it.
The 2003 Act says:
"'television receiver' means any apparatus
of a description specified in regulations made by the Secretary of
State setting out the descriptions of apparatus that are to be
television receivers for the purposes of this Part."
In 2004 the Secretary of State ruled in the Television Licensing
Regulations that:
"'television receiver' means any apparatus
installed or used for the purpose of receiving (whether by means of
wireless telegraphy or otherwise) any television programme service,
whether or not it is installed or used for any other purpose."
The law is almost certain to include the Television Licensing
Authority's new definition. "It seems pretty clear that the
definition is drawn so widely that it looks as though a PC would be
a television apparatus which under the Act needs to be licensed,"
said Kim Walker, media and technology partner with Pinsent Masons,
the law firm behind OUT-LAW.
Businesses caught watching TV without a valid licence risk a
fine of up to £1,000 plus court costs.
