# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/81 "2009-06-14T23:56:53Z")
Agreed. And not all licences require payment of a fee - some are issued free of charge. ---
**Author:** ![tetranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@tetranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tetranz)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/82 "2009-06-15T02:09:13Z")
We used to have the TV license in New Zealand. The money funded local productions regardless of whether they were shown on the government owned TVNZ or a private station. Unlike the BBC, and ABC in Australia, TVNZ stations run commercials and competes like any other station. Until the mid 1970’s in NZ you even needed a radio license to operate an AM radio. All stations were government owned. The TV license was scraped a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![tetranz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@tetranz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tetranz)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/83 "2009-06-15T02:17:38Z")
I remember reading an article on how to build a metal detector in a British electronics hobbyist magazine many years ago. It sounded hilarious to read that in the UK you needed Pipe Finders Licence to operate it. I’ve since heard that there is a serious reason for this. It’s because of the number of unexploded bombs from WWII. I don’t know if there is a test but the licence at least comes with some safety information that people are expected to read. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/84 "2009-06-15T19:14:47Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > 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. Very good points and better put than I did. I only want to point out that sometimes, the public interest is 100% in the mix, and economic interest 0%, for example driver’s license: the state doesn’t get any money from the license. (Maybe there’s a fee for issueing the paper itself, but that’s nominal, not income-generation). ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/85 "2009-06-15T19:24:28Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Not really - you don’t have to be skilful to get an angling licence - it’s just a bit of paper that says you’ve paid for the privilege of hoiking fish out of the rivers, should you be so fortunate as to catch one. There’s no test?! You should improve this to protect the enviroment! Here, you first have to show knowledge (I know a written test, I don’t know if there’s a practical part) that you know the types of fish, and can recognize and distinguish them, know the seasons and habitats, so you don’t start fishing species A during the protected breeding season, when your permit is for species B. Additionally, you pay for permits allowing some species of fish during a certain season, above a minimum size, with not forbidden methods (no dynamite fishing!) when you actually start fishing. > [@](#): > > Similarly, we have ‘road fund licence’ (aka ‘tax disc’ - a licence to permit you to use roads - distinct from the drivers licence you get when you pass your driving test), I think that seems to be what we call “Kfz-tax” (car tax), which you pay as long as you have a car that can drive. The tax should be used to repair and upkeep existing roads, improve them and build new ones. There’s an ongoing debate between the state, who says the car tax only covers part of the actual costs, and the ADAC (German AA) which says that car owners are over-taxed and the tax used for other traffic stuff while the roads decay and building of new roads is delayed. Each side has vastly different figures, naturally. (And politicans who want to score easy points with the dumb voters talk about car owners being the milking cows of the nation= they pay for everything else). > [@](#): > > until recently, we also had dog licences, but there was no test of responsible pet ownership. You have to pay a dog tax over here - I assume to cover the expense of cleaning the streets - but no cat tax, AFAIK. Though with the vicious dogs problem (pit bulls) a license showing that you know how to treat your dog correctly would be a good idea. (Dogs become mostly vicious because they are mistreated on purpose to become aggressive). ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/86 "2009-06-15T19:28:53Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Is this a joke? So your approximately $275 per year fee gives you four whole TV stations, radio stations, complete with web sites? Along with the gestapo to attempt to enforce this scheme? And you like this idea? You know, I do find this model preferrable to the US model where CNN is the offical mouthpiece for govt. propaganda, and Fox news is a platform for conservative lies, because doing real fact checks by proper journalists is not what the market wants, or what the people need. I don’t want to give half a dozen rich people to have the power to decide what the public should know, and what not. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/87 "2009-06-15T19:32:51Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I guess I’m not that well-travelled. I know that a $275 fee in the US would cause a peasants’ riot. While over here, the idea of bleeping out words or delaying broadcasts to check for offensive words and bleep them would cause a riot of the population. Because we are very much against censorship, whether directly or indirectly. And I’m continually amazed at how easy the American population gives in to the demands of religious fundamentals as long as they are Christian (while warning about how the Muslims are subverting Europe because we are so liberal and politically correct to have secular states which give people equal rights regardless of their religion). ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/88 "2009-06-15T19:45:13Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > You have to pay a dog tax over here - I assume to cover the expense of cleaning the streets - but no cat tax, AFAIK. Though with the vicious dogs problem (pit bulls) a license showing that you know how to treat your dog correctly would be a good idea. (Dogs become mostly vicious because they are mistreated on purpose to become aggressive). Here in the USA (Minneapolis, Minnesota), the dog license fee goes to support the operation of the city Animal Control department. They operate the city pound, the dogcatchers who go out to catch loose dogs, cats, etc., and to pick up dead animals that have been hit by cars. (At a loss – a fair amount of additional general tax revenue is allocated to keep them operating). Officially, we are required to have licenses for cats, too. But hardly anybody does that. (I know about a third of the City Council members have cats, unlicensed.) However, if the Animal Control picks up your loose cat, and it doesn’t have a license, they do hit you with a very heavy fine for that (around $300), which you have to pay before getting your pet back. And if you don’t, it’s put up for adoption or (more likely) euthanasized. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/89 "2009-06-15T21:39:44Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > … The detector vans/hand-held units … Ah, another Monty Python joke revealed! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/90 "2009-06-15T22:35:08Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > Saying that the state “runs” the BBC is like saying that the FCC runs American TV stations. It’s a bit late, but I think you have your analogy a bit muddled. The BBC is like the US’s PBS. The British equivalent of the FCC would be Ofcom. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/91 "2009-06-16T00:07:49Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > There’s no test?! You should improve this to protect the enviroment! Here, you first have to show knowledge (I know a written test, I don’t know if there’s a practical part) that you know the types of fish, and can recognize and distinguish them, know the seasons and habitats, so you don’t start fishing species A during the protected breeding season, when your permit is for species B. > > Additionally, you pay for permits allowing some species of fish during a certain season, above a minimum size, with not forbidden methods (no dynamite fishing!) when you actually start fishing. There is a booklet that comes out every year with all the fishing & hunting rules, seasons, size limits, etc. But you aren’t required to show any knowlege of the rules or even to pick up the booklet. You can buy the licences without even being smart enough to know how to find you way back out of the store. But you ARE going to get fined if you don’t follow the rules. The expression is ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’. It’s up to the indivudual to know what is allowed. “You didn’t know that fish was out of season? Tough, that will be $250 and we’ll take the fish.” The fines can be quite steep and may also include loss of fishing or hunting privileges for a number of years. You think not having to complete an exam to fish is odd? I can buy a hunting licence without knowing a thing about guns, not even which end to point. Only young hunters have to take a gun safety course, not sure of the age under 14-16 I think. Again, it’s a personal responsibility issue and you are expected to take it upon yourself to get educated on what you are allowed to do. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/92 "2009-06-16T01:06:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What about someone like me? I have a TV but I haven’t watched a broadcast show since sometime last year. I just used it to watch DVD’s (ironically including some BBC shows). Would I be liable for a license in the UK? No. Just make sure that your TV can’t receive live TV, and you’re fine. Actually, even if you just tell them that you’ve done that, you’ll be fine. You’ll get letters again after a year, but just tell them the same thing. > [@AK84](#): > > Students can get away with it by simply keeping their permenent address as their parents, and be covered by mum and dad’s licence. Only if they don’t have any records at all at their new address, like a tenant’s agreement or phone bills. > [@dwc1970](#): > > What’s the penalty for failing to have a licensed television? Do they have the right to even enter your home with or without probable cause? Can they confiscate your TV if you are not licensed? Do they make you pay a fine? How many people put up tinfoil or other barriers to prevent detection from the vans that scan for RFI? (I imagine this practice itself is illegal) > > Also, if you sell a TV, does the license go with it or does the new owner have to procure his own license? > > Do stores that sell TVs have to have licenses to display programming, or do they just not turn them on to circumvent licensing requirements? They really big up their rights in the letters they send, but it’s all typical bailliff blather. They can’t enter your home without your explicit permission. I doubt there are any real detector vans - or, if there are, there are very few and they can’t be very effective for flats; they just presume that any address that once had a licence still needs a licence. If you’re caught, and admit it, you will got court and get a fine. Your TV won’t be taken away. It is one of the few debts that’s won’t get wiped out if you declare bankruptcy, and it’s one of the few debts that can land you in prison if you default: [Over the 1990s there has been a sharp increase in the number of persons imprisoned for defaulting on fines for television licence evasion, from 394 to 749. There were 235 females and 493 males imprisoned for fine defaulting on television licence evasion offences in 1995.](http://www.spiderbomb.com/tv/womenprison.html) Stores that sell TVs will have licences, yeah. It is still a licence, FWIW, not just a fee (to whoever it was who said it wasn’t exactly a licence). There are no skills tests involved, but you do get a paper licence to show. The main complaint I have with the TV license is that it is per household, which means that Richard Branson - with probably about fifty digital HD TVs in a huge house - pays the same as someone living in one room with an analogue TV that can’t even receive all the BBC channels that their licence goes towards funding. That’s fucked up. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/93 "2009-06-16T01:26:24Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I know that a $275 fee in the US would cause a peasants’ riot. People keep saying that, yet many people pay $50 or $100/month for cable or satellite. It’s similar in Canada. Yes, you can just receive over-the-air television for free (assuming you have the receiver), but doing so is so uncommon these days that the Toronto Star ran an article about the practice, describing it as a new undiscovered retro-thrifty treasure. (Granted, the article was in part as a response to the US analogue broadcast shutdown; it described the bonuses of receiving HD programming over the air.) ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/94 "2009-06-16T03:52:31Z")
> [@Dahu](#): > > At least one of the reasons behind this is the aforementioned impartiality of the BBC. Having the government pay out of general taxation could be seen as compromising this, hence the licensing system. I agree about the perception, but the government must at present control what the licence fee is anyway. > [@chowder](#): > > You misunderstand me **yabob** I meant who came up with the whole idea of licences, not just for TV I think it would be hard to come up with a real answer. The general idea of the local warlord/king etc charging Joe Ordinary money to be permitted to do something goes back thousands of years. The line between taxing activities for revenue and for regulation is highly blurred. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/95 "2009-06-16T06:41:40Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > I doubt there are any real detector vans - or, if there are, there are very few and they can’t be very effective for flats; they just presume that any address that once had a licence still needs a licence. > > . Believe me there are a fair number of detector vans and they are just as effective in sussing out who has a TV set switched on in high rise flats as they are on ordinary homes. They have a device which is pointed at individual flats that they suspect of having a TV but no licence. This device will not only confirm the existance of a TV, it will also tell them what programme you’re watching. I’ve been inside one of these vans and the equipment they have is staggering ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/96 "2009-06-16T07:13:02Z")
**To get back to the OP:** > [@chowder](#): > > You misunderstand me **yabob** I meant who came up with the whole idea of licences, not just for TV It’s very ancient. Basically, a license is a permit to engage in a particular activity, whether that be fishing, driving a car, owning a television or anything else. So you’re looking for examples of activities that people are not allowed to carry on without the permission of some authority. This goes back at least to medieval times, when there were many regulated professions. You couldn’t practice as, e.g., a goldsmith in London without the permission of the Goldsmith’s Company, and they imposed standards and restrictions designed (a) to keep up quality and standards in the trade, and (b) to protect the interests of their own members, by restricting competition. They got permission to do this from the king, to whom they very possibly paid a significant sum every year. All of which meant; you needed a licence to be a goldsmith though it may not actually have been called a “license”. I’m pretty sure, though, that you wouldn’t have difficulty finding pre-medieval examples of similar licensing arrangements. There is usually some element of at least claimed public benefit in licensing schemes. The licence-issuer will claim to be regulating the trade for the public benefit. And this is not always completely spurious; consider the functions of a licence to practice medicine, for example, or a licence to drive. But such schemes have obvious revenue-raising potential, and governments are not slow to exploit it. In the past, this was something of a necessity; the technology and organisation to apply a general income tax, or a general sales tax, did not exist, so revenue had to be raised by more specific taxes. So you had your land tax (a tax on land, obviously), your excises (taxes on specific goods such as, e.g., alcohol, luxury fabrics, newspapers – what got taxed depended partly on what was politically acceptable and partly on what was easy to collect), your customs duties (taxes on imports, collected at point of entry, mainly because this was a relatively easy way to raise tax, and it was popular with domestic producers who received a competitive advantage), your stamp duties (taxes on specific transactions) and your licence fees (taxes on specific activities). Licence fees are still popular when it comes to hypothecated revenue; revenue you are committed to spending in a particular way. So in the UK the TV licence is justified because it assures the BBC of an income stream which cannot be cut off at short notice by a government who dislikes their editorial stance (the licence fee is reviewed – I think – every five years). Hence (rightly or wrongly) it is seen as helping to support the political independence of the BBC. Game and hunting licence fees, in many jurisdictions, go to conservation/environmental management. Vehicle licence fees go to road construction and maintenance. And so forth. Licenses can also be used to restrict a particular activity; you can preserve fish stocks by limiting fishing licences, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/97 "2009-06-16T08:34:48Z")
Forget medieval: [this book](http://books.google.com.au/books?id=PG6HffPwmuMC&dq)(see page 73) refers to unspecified license fees having to be paid in ancient Egypt. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/98 "2009-06-16T09:09:25Z")
> [@chowder](#): > > Believe me there are a fair number of detector vans and they are just as effective in sussing out who has a TV set switched on in high rise flats as they are on ordinary homes. > > They have a device which is pointed at individual flats that they suspect of having a TV but no licence. > > This device will not only confirm the existance of a TV, it will also tell them what programme you’re watching. > > I’ve been inside one of these vans and the equipment they have is staggering Really? How? I find this VERY hard to believe. That is, how do they pick out which flat is watching TV, and how the Hell would they know which programme’s being watched? ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2009, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/99 "2009-06-16T11:20:37Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > Really? How? I find this VERY hard to believe. > > That is, how do they pick out which flat is watching TV, and how the Hell would they know which programme’s being watched? As I understand it they point a hand held device (linked to a machine) at a particular flat. This picks up a signal telling them that a TV is in use and as different channels broadcast on different frequencies this is how they’re able to tell which programme is being viewed. Or summink ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563/100 "2009-06-20T12:14:48Z")
> [@ghardester](#): > > Again, it’s a personal responsibility issue and you are expected to take it upon yourself to get educated on what you are allowed to do. Yes, I can understand the theory behind it. But from a practical standpoint, it seems to me to be easier to control if people know the basics before giving them the license, instead of giving the license to everybody who’s upright and breathing, and then controlling afterwards if they know what they are doing. Sounds to me as if you need far more wardens to control it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/licences/499563.md?page=6)