Illegal Or Unlawful

[nailit]

what's the difference between illegal and unlawful?
Was talking to a friend about tv license's and he said that not having one was unlawful but not illegal.
What's the difference?
thanks

[woofgang]

thats what i said earlier EDDIE nailit is a very angry and troubled person. if the beeb came to him and excused him from having a tv licence he would find something else to be angry about, its very sad.

[woofgang]

and yes i would say this to his face.

[anneasquith]

in fairness though, he ( nailit ) likes a good debate.

[Hypognosis]

Is incitement to commit an offence through the online medium an offence, in itself?

Yes, I'm aware that an incitement clause is lurking in most ISP's Terms and Conditions and they can terminate your precious internet connection at a stroke. No need for warrants there! ;-)

Emulate naillit if you dare. I think he may secretly want you to get a criminal record so you can be in the same boat as him.

[sunny-dave]

The Government really missed a trick when TV went digital.

It should all have been encrypted, with smart cards needed to watch BBC channels. iPlayer should have been subscription based too.

Then we'd have seen who was really watching ...

[Hypognosis]

If enough people take the disobedience route, they'll just change the law: fine all addresses without a valid licence and put the onus on the homeowner to invite the TVL to inspect their home to prove the set is either non existant or broken or the terrain prevents terrestrial reception.

By the way, ITV etc is not 'free'. Every product you buy, you pay a few pennies towards the advertising for it - even if you never saw the ad.
All those hundreds of channels, with 15 minutes of adverts per hour? All the shopping channels? You've paid for all of those, whether you like it or not.

Because of the sheer choice of channels, fewer people see any given ad, so channels make less money per advert. The BBC would be reduced to being just another low-quality satellite channel, churning out old material it still has the rights to. No more commissioning good stuff from the independent production houses.

Then again, they reckon US TV is hundreds of channels off dross yet they still manage to make several series per year which we all lap up. On the other hand, they pull the plug on series just when they're getting good because their ratings take a dip. Can't win 'em all.

[Hypognosis]

@divebuddy

Sorry. What part of "dont pay; you don't have to let them onto your property" is -not- incitement?

[Hypognosis]

@divebuddy
I agree that the licence fee is doomed - boxed sets and streaming are undermining its justification as we speak.

I agree that it is a thinly veiled tax but adding it to income tax leaves them a few million fee units short (jobless, retired etc.) so the current way is fairest.

As for unfair advantage over competitors, I say that they are not meant to be a competitor, they are meant to be a _public service_. Maybe not fully Reithian any longer but they are not straightjacketed like sponsor-dependent broadcasters sometimes are - theoretically, they are free to produce 'edgy', 'daring', 'challenging' material which, inevitably means low ratings (but high audience appreciation by those who do watch).

In parliament, they take the BBC to task over ratings, saying that this is the way it must fulfil its public service remit - that aggravates me no end because, imho, it is behind the trend to ditch thought-provoking material and go for crowd-pleasing stuff instead. They're merely placating the "I don't like /watch bbc, so why should I have to pay for it?" whiners. As long as the people not being served, due to "dumbing down" are a numerical minority then that makes it okay, as far as the Govt is concerned.

Before I forget - @naillit
unlawful and illegal are the same thing. Congratulations on getting 6+ pages out of it. My threads struggle to make it to page 2.
;-)

[SirOracle]

Hypognosis Re your congratulations for getting 6+ pages out of it,it may end up with him getting 6+ months. !!!

[Hypognosis]

No, Sir_O. He's actually being very public spirited by pointing out how our laws have tied themselves in knots, couching the offence in such a way as to make observation of the offence in progress near impossible.

I don't quite get the lack of interest from police unless he lives on a no-go estate where they have genuine reason to fear for their lives or it's because it's a minor crime compared to drugs, violence and worse that they have on their plate. The licencing staff have no powers of entry and the police can't enter because they cannot see an offence being commited from the doorstep.

Hamstrung by badly written laws. However, change those laws and we'll become a police state. I just don't want to give them any excuses to make those kinds of changes and giving clues about how to face off the authorities don't help in that regard.

[SirOracle]

Sorry Hypognosis but I cannot accept that altruism is his motivation here. I am more inclined to my already expressed view that he is avoiding paying for something which he is legally required to pay.

I won't go into the moral issues involved,which have already been mentioned by some other posters.

[Retrochic]

Sir Oracle, which brings us thankfully back to the original Question: Is he LEGALLY obliged to pay or LAWFULLY obliged to pay and what is the difference, if any...Amen

[nailit]

woofgang //nailit is a very angry and troubled person. if the beeb came to him and excused him from having a tv licence he would find something else to be angry about,//.....Er, no I wouldnt! And I'm not angry at the license fee anyway.

Hypognosis //Emulate naillit if you dare. I think he may secretly want you to get a criminal record so you can be in the same boat as him.//....now thats just juvenile....//Congratulations on getting 6+ pages out of it. My threads struggle to make it to page 2...thank you very much.

SirOracle //Hypognosis Re your congratulations for getting 6+ pages out of it,it may end up with him getting 6+ months. !!!//....LOL LOL.
//I am more inclined to my already expressed view that he is avoiding paying for something which he is legally required to pay.//....If I was legally required to pay it I wonder why I havnt been prosecuted yet? Surely if I was commiting a crime then I would have been taken to court??

[SirOracle]

Retrochick. Yes the circle seems to have completed.Seems to me that both illegal and unlawful are correct,but in my eyes it does not matter, as the OP has opted not to pay, and is certainly not what I would describe as a model citizen.
The tentacles of justice are long and they may yet encircle him. I live in hope !!

[Zacs-Master]

Well done SirO but I think the truth of the matter was decided on the first page by myself and a couple of others.

[SirOracle]

Agreed Zacs

[scooping]

Thanks nailit: There is no difference.