# Licences **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 12, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563 "2009-06-12T16:30:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/1 "2009-06-12T16:30:28Z")
Here in the UK we have to have licences for: Watching TV Driving Gun Ownership Angling…yes we do ☹ These are just a few. I got to wondering which bright spark first thought of the idea of a licence and in particular the one required before you can go fishing. This has to be one of the silliest on record but if you’re caught fishing without a licence your tackle will be seized, you’ll be taken to court and fined a maximum of £2500. We used to have to have a licence if you owned a dog, not sure if you still do ---
**Author:** ![aerodave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f08c70/32.png) [@aerodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aerodave)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/2 "2009-06-12T16:43:00Z")
> [@chowder](#): > > This has to be one of the silliest on record but if you’re caught fishing without a licence your tackle will be seized, you’ll be taken to court and fined a maximum of £2500. I know things often look different through our respective cultural lenses. But do you really think that needing a fishing license is stranger than needing a license to _watch TV_?! ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/3 "2009-06-12T16:43:35Z")
Hunting and fishing make sense to me. The license fees can be used to fund Game Management, the study and monitoring of population stocks so proper quotas can be made for the next year. They also fund Game Wardens who’ll help insure those directives are met. Why though must you have a license to watch TV. Does that help fund the BBC? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/4 "2009-06-12T16:49:45Z")
I am pretty sure all developed countries require fishing and hunting licenses because of the environmental aspects of those activities. But, yeah, requiring a license to watch TV is … weird. ---
**Author:** ![somepumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@somepumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/somepumpkin)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/5 "2009-06-12T16:50:44Z")
Yes, money generated from the sale of fishing licenses is used to fund management of the game species, and in some cases, improvements and maintenance on facilities (boat ramps, piers, etc). The license database can also be used for data collection. The same is also true of hunting licenses here in NC, but elsewhere YYMV. One could argue that those fishing without a license are “stealing” the resource (see: poaching). Please tell us more about a license to watch TV. For all channels, or just some of them? Everyone has to have them… or just “professional” watchers? ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/6 "2009-06-12T18:19:04Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > Why though must you have a license to watch TV. Does that help fund the BBC? It provides the vast majority of the BBC’s income. (And, as a nitpick, it’s a licence to \*own \*a TV, not to watch one.) There is some opposition to funding the BBC this way, but most European countries fund their public broadcasters the same way. (There are also commercial broadcasters, funded by advertising, and scrambled digital channels funded by subscription - not workable for analogue because analogue signals cannot be securely encrypted.) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/7 "2009-06-12T18:19:33Z")
In New York, you need a license to be a barber. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/8 "2009-06-12T18:23:47Z")
If you have two televisions, do you need two licenses? Or an endorsement on the first license, or just an additional fee? Or does the first license entitle you to as many TVs as you desire? Here in Summit County, Ohio, you need a license to sell firewood. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/9 "2009-06-12T18:23:58Z")
Personally, I think the TV license is a great deal. For that, we get to watch, listen to and read the BBC, which has, indisputably, the finest TV programming in the world, with no adverts. When TV started in the UK after WW2, we had one channel, BBC. It was, and is, funded through the license fee, currently £142 p.a. In the mid '50s, a second, commercial channel (ITV) started. In the late sixties, the BBC added another channel (imaginatively named BBC2). In 1982, we got another commercial channel, Channel 4, followed in 1997 by Channel 5 (you see the exciting pattern here of naming channels?) Despite these channels being funded by advertising, the license fee still has to be paid. The license fee pays for four BBC TV channels, many local and national radio stations, their web sites, and a whole lot more. All of which are leaders in their respective fields, and paragons of quality. ETA: your license covers all the TVs in your home. And you still need a license if you’re blind. It is half price, though. ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/10 "2009-06-12T18:26:16Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > If you have two televisions, do you need two licenses? Or an endorsement on the first license, or just an additional fee? Or does the first license entitle you to as many TVs as you desire? One licence per household for as many TVs as they have. ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/11 "2009-06-12T18:32:53Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > And you still need a license if you’re blind. It is half price, though. People over 75 years old get it for free. And there’s also a cut-price licence fee for black-and-white TVs only. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/12 "2009-06-12T18:35:39Z")
It used to be that you needed a radio operator’s license in order to work as a deejay. Whah? A license to babble nonsense and play recorded music and commercial announcements? I believe the licensing requirement no longer exists. The real technical “operation” is done by other people anyway. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/13 "2009-06-12T18:37:04Z")
> [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](#): > > People over 75 years old get it for free. And there’s also a cut-price licence fee for black-and-white TVs only. Isn’t that daft. You can’t see the thing, and you have to pay. When you’re old and decrepit, I guess they think you’re too senile to know how to switch your TV on, and won’t understand what you’re watching, so you don’t have to pay. Aah, a caring government. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/14 "2009-06-12T18:37:20Z")
You may need a fishing license… but you DON’T need a fish license. There is NO SUCH THING as a fish license. Not even if you own a pet halibut. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/15 "2009-06-12T18:40:01Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > Isn’t that daft. You can’t see the thing, and you have to pay. Well, obviously a blind person is deriving some benefit from the TV, or he or she wouldn’t bother to have it. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/16 "2009-06-12T18:51:04Z")
Licensure requirements serve a variety of more logical and less logical purposes. [ul] [li]General revenue enhancement.[/li][li]Targeted revenue enhancement (“user fees” such as fishing or driving licenses, where the fees ideally go toward the agencies regulating and managing the underlying activities).[/li][li]Assuring competency to undertake an underlying activity for personal safety reasons (boat license, hunter safety license).[/li][li]Assuring competency to undertake an activity on behalf of others on a professional basis (doctor, lawyer, electrician).[/li][li]Limiting the number of purveyors of a given service for an arguably laudable purpose (taxi licenses or liquor licenses, on the grounds that we don’t want the streets clogged with taxis or lined with saloons on every corner).[/li][li]Limiting the number of purveyors of particular goods or services for anti-competitive/cartel protection reasons (requiring cosmetology license to braid cornrows for money, because established salons don’t want random ladies in the neighborhood competing with them).[/li][/ul] So the underlying justifications boil down to some mix of economics and a claimed public interest in making sure people don’t just do activity X willy-nilly and without some (allegedly-necessary) publilc oversight. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/17 "2009-06-12T18:51:59Z")
You need a license to sell alcohol. I suspect this requirement must be universal. In fact, several, depending on how you want to sell the stuff. One for ‘on’ sales (consumed on the premises), another for ‘off’ ( to take away). For wine, one license to sell by the case (12 bottles), another to sell single bottles. There are probably more. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/18 "2009-06-12T18:56:10Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > So the underlying justifications boil down to some mix of economics and a claimed public interest in making sure people don’t just do activity X willy-nilly and without some (allegedly-necessary) publilc oversight. Ah… marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/19 "2009-06-12T19:06:19Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > Ah… marriage. Well, right. The state gets involved because it asserts (at various times) an interest in making sure that the parties are: (1) competent; (2) not related by too great a degree; (3) not diseased in a way that could lead to a blight of sick babies (remember how some states used to require a syphillis test?); (4) not rushing into it (license requirement often=built in waiting period for the processing time). Also, marriage creates big legal and financial consequences, which the state will then possibly have to adjudicate it, so the state claims an interest in some minimal oversight over how and when a valid “marriage” may be created. Currently, there’s a debate over whether that can include limiting “marriages” that the state will license to those between a man and a woman, as has historically been the case. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/20 "2009-06-12T19:06:42Z")
> [@somepumpkin](#): > > Yes, money generated from the sale of fishing licenses is used to fund management of the game species, and in some cases, improvements and maintenance on facilities (boat ramps, piers, etc). Yes. You can think of fishing licenses as sort of a user’s fee, for using public resources like lakes or rivers. In Illinois, for instance, > [@](#): > > License fees help pay for fishery and hatchery management, habitat development and protection, endangered species programs, fishing and conservation education, lake maps and other publications, and many other valuable programs. > [@](#): > > Anglers under 16 years of age, and persons declared legally disabled or blind, may fish without a license. Owners or tenants (if they reside on the land) may fish in waters on or flowing over their lands without a license. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563.md?page=2)