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British Television Regulator Asserts Authority Over Online Transmitted TV
The British television licensing authority has indicated that they will make no distinction between individuals watching television through their PC, TV, broadband, or any other way. In their view, if you are viewing television at the same time it is being broadcast in the United Kingdom, then you need to be covered by a valid licence. Indeed, the legal definition of “television receiver “is, in British law, broad enough to capture a PC.
The immediate implication that emerges is employees using their computers at work to view television programming. If a workplace does not have a broadcast licence then, theoretically, the company could be faced with court proceedings.
The licence authority in Britain monitors both equipment sales and licence holders which allows them to cross-reference and thereby determine specifically which businesses are receiving broadcast without a licence. Critics have argued that the regulator will have a very difficult time prosecuting these cases because no records are currently kept about purchases of PC equipment. It does not, however, take a crystal ball for regulators to see that major businesses operating in financial centres might have one or two computers on their premises.
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