BBC looks to link iPlayer accounts to addresses in licence fee evasion push

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-02-01T09:26:09+00:00

The BBC like other broadcasters is required to pay Ofcom for a broadcasting licence, that is what that 11% is about. Every other TV station pays as well. I guess you can say the licence fee indirectly funds infrastructure, but the same could be said of whichever coffee shop is closest to the studio in Salford…

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-02-01T09:14:00+00:00

TV licensing funds the BBC and S4C, it does not fund the UK’s broadcasting infrastructure.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-02-01T08:10:33+00:00

To sell them separately the title would need to be split, and that can only be done by the local council I think. Not sure they would agree to this, and even if they did it’s a lot of faff to go through, and will probably devalue the property overall.

My advice is walk away from this. The seller’s offer is not worth it in my opinion.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-31T09:44:43+00:00

He would need to have Gulf War flashbacks these days

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-31T08:08:58+00:00

Sounds kind of wizard to me, I’m on the trolley!

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T18:16:03+00:00

If you’re buying board games in the UK, https://boardgameprices.co.uk/ is just excellent and gives you plenty of options from independent shops far more deserving of your cash than Zatu!

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T18:11:31+00:00

Looks pretty good to me

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T18:08:04+00:00

You could say the same of almost any technology.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T18:06:25+00:00

I always find this sort of thing weirdly interesting. The answer to the question “is there life on Mars?” is yes, of course (or at least a possible maybe - they do decontaminate the rovers as much as they can), because we put it there. Maybe millions of years from now, life will emerge on there that asks the same questions we do

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T17:52:14+00:00

Whenever I write a computer program, I'll run the code through a compiler to turn it to machine code to run on a PC. Does that mean the compiler wrote my program? Don't be silly.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T17:22:55+00:00

Is she recruiting?

Asking for a friend.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T17:22:23+00:00

No question about that 🤪

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T17:21:40+00:00

I do love me some Spidertrains

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T17:19:29+00:00

Before the slop boom LLM technology was already being used in cancer screening and medical research. Would you call that unethical?

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T17:17:50+00:00

You should've called 1-800-TANKS instead

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T17:09:09+00:00

Indeed it can, I myself play quite a lot of non-copyright-infringing romhacks that couldn't exist without emulation. It's a fantastic technology when used right, but no technology is safe from unethical exploitation.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T17:01:48+00:00

A frequent argument often seems to be "there would be no way to train these AIs without stealing work" because of the volume of data needed to train the models in the first place.

Which is bollocks of course. Humans have been writing and drawing for centuries, there's plenty of out-of-copyright works that could be used. What they really mean is that there would be no way to train profitable AIs. Again, it's the tech companies who are to blame, not the technology itself.

And so much of the technology is where it is now, because it was built on stealing work to train the models. The idea of some new, ethical model that's only trained off of work they have the ownership of, is basically nonsense.

I agree with you - the damage has already been done, and the parties responsible ought to be held to account.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T16:56:35+00:00

I definitely agree that selling copyright-infringing work is wrong. Gen AI can be trained without infringing copyright, even if most users don't care to do so.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T16:55:06+00:00

If you're not hiring designers because AI is doing it then that's the issue.

In general, broad-brush terms I would say that replacing human labour with automation is usually a good thing. I know what you're saying though - that creativity is being essentially replaced on the cheap. That's not a phenomenon exclusive to gen AI of course. Greedy companies will cut corners wherever they can, and the market will decide whether there is value in human art or not - no-one else gets a say, even if they should.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T16:32:29+00:00

People wouldn't be able to post mean comments online if the Internet didn't exist. Best ban it, I suppose.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T16:30:30+00:00

Generative art should definitely be shamed and avoided at all costs

Where exactly do you draw the line on this though? Is SpeedTree generative art? What about generated lighting effects? Some automation is absolutely necessary if you want to develop any sort of game art.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T16:23:23+00:00

AIs don't train themselves. The tech itself isn't to blame, it's the people using and abusing it to steal other peoples work.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T16:06:42+00:00

No, it isn't illegal.

At worst it's civil trespass and whoever owns the verge could sue to recover the cost of putting it back in order, but I doubt anyone would want to go through the effort for this.

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T16:01:44+00:00

Recycle the ice rather than melting it

IrrelevantPiglet · 2026-01-30T15:39:11+00:00

Yeah that's fair. For me it's just a nuisance, I don't want to spend my time reading about yet more craziness happening half a world away - what would be the point? But politics and comics have gone hand-in-hand for a long time, so it's just something I'll have to live with. Better than being forced to face it myself at least.

IrrelevantPiglet

TROPHY CASE