What (kind of body) is TV Licensing, and how do they select people to send their scary mailings to? Is the body a governmental department? Is it established or commissioned by any legislation in particular? What is its mandated function and mode of function? How does it select what addresses to send its lovely nonsense to, what addresses to skip over?
I worked for TV Licensing for 9 years. They have two databases: The Post Office Address File (PAF, which they subscribe to for a fee) and their own database of licenced (UK spelling) addresses. They run a periodic compare, and write to the ones that are on the PAF but not the TVL. At the time, there were 27 million households on the PAF, and 24 million on the TVL. Data from elsewhere showed that 97% of UK households had TVs, so there was a gap to be closed (around 3 million) which represented extra revenue for the BBC, and they got some of that kicked back as an incentive. The IT infrastructure was ancient (they still had a DEC VAX) and there were anomalies, e.g. letters were sent to places like &quot;Water Tank&quot; and &quot;Railway Signal Box&quot;, plus houses were demolished, new ones built, etc. Also, TV dealers were obliged by law to notify TVL of the names and addresses of people buying or renting TVs, VCRs, etc, but no legal obligation on the buyer to provide their correct address, or any at all. It is no more illegal to send letters to addresses asking if a TV licence is needed, than it is to send them asking if a credit card is wanted, or begging for a donation to a charity. The letters were carefully worded to avoid any accusation of wrongdoing. It may be useful to remember that the funding model for the BBC was established nearly 100 years ago, in 1923, when a 'Radio Licence' was required to operate a broadcast radio receiver. These were expensive items, and usually bought from retailers, who could be obliged to notify the licensing authority of purchasers' names and addresses. By the time that licence was abolished, in 1971, radio sets were so cheap and ubiquitous that the scheme was unworkable. The same thing is happening with TVs. Where I live, not a rich suburb, people routinely give away 5 to 7 year old smart or non-smart TVs for nothing, or put them out for trash collection. I can get a USB TV tuner stick for around the equivalent of $15 that would turn my tablet, PC, or Raspberry Pi into a fully functioning TV. The UK parliament is examining a number of alternative funding models, some of which involve transferring the burden to general taxation. HOUSE OF LORDS Communications and Digital Committee 1st Report of Session 2022–23 Licence to change: BBC future funding Note for international readers: in the UK, 'licence' is the noun, and 'license' the verb.
I'm a notary. If someone showed me a marked-up license, I'd refuse to perform the notarization, and make a note of the persons name and phone number, to make sure I would never make another appointment with the person. Is there a law that says I have to refuse? I don't think so. Is there is a law that says I can refuse if I have any doubts about the person's identity? Absolutely.
No crime is committed if a person performs a service and ineptly describes the service. To change the context a bit, I might contract with a guy to build a wall and he says he will charge me for installing a "Swedish drain" when in fact what he will install is called a "French drain". If he installs the thing, it does not matter (legally) whether he calls it by the conventional name. I am not relying on the distinction between French and "Swedish" drains, and that is not material. However: he may specify that the drain will use 18 inches of 1.5" drain rock, but he uses (and intends to use) 18 mm of 3/8" crushed rock, and that is a material fact. In the latter case, he has committed fraud. The same considerations go into dealing with "unnecessary" service, which however is more about "what he said". Let's assume that you come in with a flat tire and the mechanic offers to overhaul the engine. If you agree to this service, that is not fraud, because he did not say something false that you depended on. If, however, you ask "Why would overhauling the engine be necessary" and he says, I dunno, "Because by law, I can't repair a tire without first overhauling the engine", or "Because you flat was caused by astral radiation from a poorly-tuned engine", then that would be fraud – the statements are false, and you relied to their truth, in agreeing to the service. On the third hand, reasonable statements like "it might help", "it could work" are not deceptive, even if it turns out they are not true. Fraud is not about statements that "turn out not to be supported by the facts", it is about statements that you know to be false.
What legal problems might you run into? Well, you'd be violating 47 USC 301, which requires a license for anyone broadcasting in the United States. Penalties for that are given in 47 USC 501 (a fine of up to $10,000 and up to a year in prison), 47 USC 502 (an additional fine of $500 per day of violation), 47 USC 501(b)(2)(D) (forfeiture of up to $10,000 per day, with a maximum of $75,000), and 47 USC 510 (forfeiture of your equipment). "Just outside the FM band" on the low end (below 88 MHz) is television channel 6, while on the high end (above 108 MHz) are frequencies used for airplane navigation. If your transmission interferes with a licensed user of channel 6, you're also in violation of 47 USC 333, which carries much the same penalties as violating section 301, but without the forfeiture of equipment. If your transmission interferes with air navigation, you're in violation of 49 USC 46308, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000. Honestly, you'd be better off broadcasting inside the FM band: there, you can broadcast without a license under 47 CFR 15, which limits you to a broadcast power of 250 microvolts per meter at 3 meters (basically, you can broadcast to anyone in your house or maybe the next house over).
Disclosures are prescribed by state law. Fair housing, which is a federal concept, pertains to issues such as using prohibited personal facts to determine whether to accept an offer. (Hazardous materials disclosures are also mandated at the federal level, but are are included in state requirements which can get pretty broad). If you are buying in Washington state, RCW 64.06.020 says what and how you must disclose. The list of disclosures is very detailed, covering title and covenants, water, sewer, structure, systems and fixtures, environment, and mobile home related. The only one of the 86 questions about smoke is whether smoke alarms are present. Thus smell of smoke is not a legally material fact that must be disclosed, in this state. The California disclosures, even longer, are here, and there is likewise no "smells bad" disclosure. It is unlikely that any state in the US mandates such a disclosure, since it is somewhere between a subjective evaluation and a self-evident fact. Some people are very sensitive to certain smells while others do not care. The burden is on the buyer to pursue matters of personal concern (in writing!), such as whether any dog has been present in the house in the past 5 years (some people care). You have to look carefully at the response. "Don't know" is usually a safe bet, unless you actually have factual knowledge. From what I can determine, Massachussetts is on the opposite end of the spectrum from California. There are some requirements imposed on real estate agents, and there is the federal lead paint disclosure, but otherwise it appears that nothing is mandated by law. This form seems to be used by the real estate association, and there is a question about "history of smoke/fire damage to structure". The reasonable interpretation of that is "has the house caught fire and suffered damage", so "no" from a cigar-smoker would not be fraudulent. If the intent of the question were to reveal if someone has smoked frequently in the house, that would he the question they'd ask. You can check whether you have this form and see what it says, but "smoke damage" would not normally be interpreted as meaning "smells a bit funny".
The question that you need to answer is whether, when you embed, you "copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content". It seems that you have done that, i.e. you didn't just "watch". The next question is whether you have "prior written consent of YouTube". Youtube requires a license from contributors granting users the right to "access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service". To fill the gap, you have to determine whether your act of embedding is permitted by the Youtube TOS. Their TOS states §2A that "The Service" includes the YouTube "Embeddable Player". It also says §4 YouTube hereby grants you permission to access and use the Service as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that: (A) You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Service or the Content without YouTube's prior written authorization, unless YouTube makes available the means for such distribution through functionality offered by the Service (such as the Embeddable Player). On the face of it and as long as you do the stuff that follows in B-I, you have complied with that requirement and therefore you have written permission from Youtube.
In ABC v Aereo 573 U. S. ____ (2014), the US Supreme Court held that activity almost identical to what you describe is copyright infringement. Respondent Aereo, Inc., sells a service that allows its subscribers to watch television programs over the Internet at about the same time as the programs are broadcast over the air. When a subscriber wants to watch a show that is currently airing, he selects the show from a menu on Aereo’s website. Aereo’s system, which consists of thousands of small antennas and other equipment housed in a centralized warehouse, responds roughly as follows: A server tunes an antenna, which is dedicated to the use of one subscriber alone, to the broadcast carrying the selected show. A transcoder translates the signals received by the antenna into data that can be transmitted over the Internet. A server saves the data in a subscriber-specific folder on Aereo’s hard drive and begins streaming the show to the subscriber’s screen once several seconds of programming have been saved. The streaming continues, a few seconds behind the over-the-air broadcast, until the subscriber has received the entire show. We must decide whether respondent Aereo, Inc., infringes [copyright] by selling its subscribers a technologically complex service that allows them to watch television programs over the Internet at about the same time as the programs are broadcast over the air. We conclude that it does. A nicer summary, oral argument transcript and audio are available from the Oyez Project. In my opinion, your example is more clearly an infringement of copyright than Aereo's. Aereo dedicated separate antennae to receive a signals for each subscriber at the subscriber's direction, and rebroadcast the signal over the internet in near real-time. This let them argue two things: 1) that they were not performing the work, only letting other people perform it, and 2) that the performance was not &quot;to the public&quot;. In your example, the server is receiving and saving the broadcast, and then later, that single copy is being reproduced and transmitted to whomever requests it. That would certainly be considered both reproduction and performance to the public.
There is a federal law, 18 USC 2252, which criminalized distribution and receiving of child porn. One part of the law addresses a person who (1) knowingly transports or ships using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce or in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce by any means including by computer or mails, any visual depiction, if— (A) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and (B) such visual depiction is of such conduct; The next part addresses one who (2) knowingly receives, or distributes, any visual depiction using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce or that has been mailed, or has been shipped or transported in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or which contains materials which have been mailed or so shipped or transported, by any means including by computer, or knowingly reproduces any visual depiction for distribution using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce or in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or through the mails, if— (A) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and (B) such visual depiction is of such conduct; The word "knowingly" is crucial here: it may mean that if you don't know, it's not a crime. The wording is not completely clear, in that maybe the law only says that you have to know that you received and don't have to know anything about the item that you received. So it is up the the Supreme Court to say exactly what that means. In US v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, they did. The court held that "knowingly" does not just mean that you know you are receiving or distributing, because that would yield absurd results such as that a retail druggist who returned a roll of film unprocessed would be guilty of distributing child porn, just in case the film contains child porn. As the court says, "We do not assume that Congress, in passing laws, intended such results". There is a general constitutional presumption that any crime has a scienter requirement (Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600): "the standard presumption in favor of a scienter requirement should apply to each of the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct". The court rejects the narrow interpretation that "knowingly" just applies to the verb, and "This interpretation is supported by the canon that a statute is to be construed where fairly possible so as to avoid substantial constitutional questions". There are also state laws which are untouched by X-Citement, which may make possession of child porn a strict liability offense. Washington state law is written so that you have to know or intend ("Knowingly develops, duplicates, publishes, prints, disseminates, exchanges, finances, attempts to finance, or sells a visual or printed matter that depicts a minor engaged in an act of sexually explicit conduct as defined in RCW 9.68A.011(4) (a) through (e)" or "Possesses with intent to develop, duplicate, publish, print, disseminate, exchange, or sell any visual or printed matter that depicts a minor engaged in an act of sexually explicit conduct as defined in RCW 9.68A.011(4) (a) through (e)".) The statutory rape law on the other hand has no requirement pertaining to knowledge or intent (1) A person is guilty of rape of a child in the third degree when the person has sexual intercourse with another who is at least fourteen years old but less than sixteen years old and not married to the perpetrator and the perpetrator is at least forty-eight months older than the victim. I don't know whether some state's statute was written without a "knowingly" requirement.