Forums Forums Enthusiast Forums A - Z Gadgets & Tech IPTV and the law

Looking for some information on IPTV streaming that I pay for. In my eyes, it is a little wrong but nothing will probably ever come back on me in terms of the law. My missus on the other hand is up in arms about the whole situation and thinks that the door is going to be kicked down any minute and I'm carted away for the rest of my life.

We've both done our own research and still have different stances about the legality of it all.

Would someone happen to have any information relating to the actual laws around this? My understanding of it is if I am watching it I'm fine, but if I'm providing the streams etc, then that is the illegal part that can earn me a stretch at her majestys finest prison.

Do you mean DON'T pay for? Or is it an illegal streaming service that you do pay for?

Sorry, I pay a certain amount per month to receive all Sky/BT and worldwide channels. I don't provide them for others to use

I occasionally watch football that is on firstrowsports. Bit hit and miss as to quality and annoying pop ups. Its not illegal to watch it from a source that is it self perhaps illegally streaming it. Its a bit like buying counterfeit goods although handling stolen goods is alittle different.
I can no longer watch BBC I player as they changed the rules about needing a licence to watch it.

The law regarding television is that you have to be caught watching it (on TV or PC or mobile)..now if you never let a TV inspector into your home they cant catch you. Jury is out regarding detection from outside your home..
There is no legal obligation to let a TV inspector into your home unless accompanied by Police.in order to get Police they must have proof you are watching TV..The police only attend to prevent a breach of the peace and not to arrest you if found watching TV. Now if your TV is not on there is no evidence you are watching it.

Ive never had a TV licence (because I don't watch or record TV as its broadcast). I get a letter every 2 weeks threatening to take me to court etc etc. Think in 35 years they have only called once and I was out.I am under no obligation to tell them I have or don't have a TV. I have a TV to watch dvds and firestick etc.

So is that a legal service you are paying for or an illegal service. I assume from the question you are paying for an illegal service.

The law hasn't been tested yet but clearly what you are doing is wrong and as we don't have a statute of limitations in this country then you are still at risk in the future even if you stop now.

One of the criteria that would go against you is that you know it is an illegal service, this doesn't significantly make any difference as to whether you are guilty or not but makes a difference to the severity of the crime and whether it is worth chasing you should the law be clarified.

As you are paying for the service you can be classed as an accomplice in the act of providing the illegal service - you are financing it.

If the law was clarified, in reality they probably would either not chase up historic customers or set a fixed price eg £100 or £200 to be paid to cover previous activity.

My biggest concern would be paying money to a company that operates outside the law, they could probably rake you whenever they want. I don't think Paypal (or whatever) protection would help you out in this scenario and I can't see the police being keen to pick up the pieces.

Could the law be clarified? I think the answer is yes, there are numerous complications such as watching a streaming service is not downloading it (which is illegal and tested) but at the end of the day when you watch a movie it is only presented one frame at a time, each frame is a still and each frame is copyright. Your system stores complete frames even though it may not store the complete stream/movie.

Your device also caches the stream, under copyright law you are generally allowed to use a sample as fair use, this length is generally taken to be under 30 seconds (but other factors come to play). If your device caches more than 30 seconds then you are probably classed as downloading.

All imho of course. Personally I am pretty risk averse where it comes to the law and certainly things that could catch up with me in the future.

Legal services are fairly cheap if you shop around and there are plenty of free illegal services which are less risk.

A few years ago I would have said have at it. But laws and regulations have been passed that basically allow government offices to look at your internet history, making it a struggle to obfuscate you internet activities. The Investigatory Powers Bill which came in last year was a real blow for internet privacy. Snowden himself said this about it: “The UK has just legalised the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes further than many autocracies.”

There are no details about detection methods, what what type of activity would be considered worthy of chasing up, or indeed whether it is just browsing history or extends beyond into things like raw data streams, Kodi data requests, gaming streams, etc. They also don't say which protocols they monitor and if that includes secure systems.

Most importantly, it doesn't say if it just applies to criminal law activities, or civil law activities, and how easy it would be for third parties to gain access to the information to pursue a civil case.

So IMO in the surveilance age we now find ourselves in and the lack of knowledge as to what is safe (relatively speaking), it is better to err on the side of caution and stop. I did a few years ago, I got a bit paranoid about it and came to the conclusion the risk of heavy fines outweighed the benefits.

Netflix, prime and youtube provide everything I need.

I give up on iptv as it would be cut just before a show I want to see or buffer on live tv, I've got 200mb so I use now tv has it got all I need without missing out, I don't watch sports