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[jaymac]

t’s all too easy to tune out the endless drone of Brexit comings and goings but in the real world there will be knock-on effects for technology and how it can be used.One such change has come to light in new Government guidance that states that consumers “who access programmes via EU satellite broadcasting services to avoid a charge for a UK service will need to stop after Brexit.”As it stands, pre-Brexit, UK consumers can use legitimate satellite decoder devices intended for use in the EU to view programmes otherwise included in UK broadcast without needing a validating reason to do so. This is the result of a 2011 Court of Justice of the European Union ruling that stated that section 297 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) - which determines the illegality of using an illicit/cloned decoders intended for another country in order to dishonestly avoid paying a charge to the UK broadcaster - should not include legitimate decoding devices. This is because such a restriction is inconsistent with the EU’s ‘freedom of services’, provided by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.Boiled down, what this means is that, currently, it’s acceptable to use a decoder designed to access EU broadcasts that also include UK programming that consumers would otherwise have to pay for.However, from the point of Brexit, currently 31st October 2019, that will no longer be the case and the EU introduced ‘loophole’ will be removed from the CDPA. Therefore, to use a decoder in such a way as to circumvent the charge associated with the programme will become an offence.The only exception to this is for viewers who use an EU decoder device to access programmes included in UK broadcasts for purposes other than the circumvention of payment. One such example would be expats living in the UK who require access to programmes in their native language - something that is enshrined in human rights laws.This change will not weaken or change in any way the illegality of illicit decoder devices for the acts specified by section 297 of the CDPA (for example, cloned, counterfeit, or stolen decoder devices).

[DaveM]

 

As we read this, I can imagine scores of highly-trained EU TV-police massing on the Irish land border with hi-tech detectors ready to winkle out all the UK users of illicit satellite decoders and drag the miscreants to the deepest dungeon in Brussels......

Solution? Take back control and don't let 'em in! 

Brexit breeds bunkum.
DaveM

[Plastic - RIP]

I've heard they are demanding you turn your dish around the other way at the end of the month so you cannot tune into European satellites.

[TheLongBuild]

I've heard they are demanding you turn your dish around the other way at the end of the month so you cannot tune into European satellites.

End of which month !!!

[kinmel]

I thought all those old technologies had died out.
Links to programmes from all over the world appear online as soon as they are broadcast. Use the links to pull down the video files off Rapidgator, Nitroflare etc and watch them through Plex.

[Steve Dean]

Please tell me this is someones idea of an April fool joke. All the satellite channels that are quite OK to view are positioned such that dishes typically point in basically an easterly direction. So please don't read this tripe and panic.
If you fast forward to the year 2054 ....... a group of university students will be asking their tutors, "What is this referendum that people have to vote on every year?" !!!!!!

[grendel]

well I have freesat, and my antenna still points south (from kent) to the same satellite that I used when I had sky, I only get the free to view channels, so will continue to use this unless directed otherwise, I am pretty certain that the satellite i use is over france somewhere.

[malcolmfrary]

well I have freesat, and my antenna still points south (from kent) to the same satellite that I used when I had sky, I only get the free to view channels, so will continue to use this unless directed otherwise, I am pretty certain that the satellite i use is over france somewhere.

Entertainmnt sattelites are geostationary - to be geostaionary they are all above the equator, about 25000 mile due up from there.  To broadcast to a given area, their transmit antennas are aimed to give a signal over a footprint area, which is a geometrical shape, rather than something that matches political bondaries.  Usually, signals are encoded so that receivers sold in various areas will only respond to the right signals, more easily done with digital systems than analogue, which died off a lot of years ago.