What laws govern, empower, or limit indiscriminate accusatory TV Licensing mailings? Anyone who has lived in the UK knows about postal TV license fee spam. These gaslighting, accusatory and threatening letters seem to verge on extortion, and are regularly received by households who do not watch any TV. What is the worst that can happen due to ignoring these seemingly empty threats, who sends them out, what powers do they have, and is it not illegal for them to send these threatening letters groundlessly?
The law doesn't work like that. You don't need a law to allow you to send someone a letter, just as you don't need a law to allow you to do anything at all. You are free to do anything you like unless there is a law which says you can't do that thing. There is no law which specifically says that TV licensing cannot write to unlicensed properties. More generally, there is Section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 which provides at sub-section 1: A person must not pursue a course of conduct — (a) which amounts to harassment of another, and (b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other. Sub-section 3 provides that the above rule is not breached if &quot;in the particular circumstances the pursuit of the course of conduct was reasonable.&quot; Section 7 provides that &quot;course of conduct&quot; means there must be at least two occasions of that conduct, and that harassment includes alarm and distress. It is a fast and straightforward matter to notify TV licensing that you don't need a TV Licence. You are free to do that at any point before or after you receive a letter. If you do so, they will stop writing to you for two years. It seems unlikely therefore that a court would make a finding of harassment. It is reasonable conduct for TV Licensing to write to properties which its records show are unlicensed given that they will stop doing so if you ask them to. &quot;What is the worst that can happen due to ignoring these seemingly empty threats?&quot; If you do not do any of the following: Install or use a television receiver. Have in your possession or control a television receiver which you intend to install or use or which you know or believe someone else intends to install or use, then you can safely ignore the letters free of consequence. If you do any of the above then you will commit an offence under Section 363 of the Communications Act 2003 and you can be prosecuted.
Say I build myself a faraday cage/wave screen around my house, potentially resulting in poor nework coverage for my neighbours. Questions about land property and constructing permits apart, can I be sued for that? By the network operator? by the neighbours? In most countries, the use of the radio spectrum is regulated (who may send what on which frequency, at which power, etc.). As part of these regulations it is usually forbidden to interfere with the reception of radio waves. So if what you do causes your neighbours to have reception problems, then yes, that will most likely be illegal. In France, the government agency responsible for these problems is ARCEP (Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes). If someone notices reception problems, they can complain to ARCEP, as explained for example on the page Le traitement des plaintes en brouillage ("Handling of complaints about jamming"). While you will probably not go to prision for jamming reception, you could have to pay a significant fine. This article on cell phone jamming mentions a penalty of "up to six months in prison or a 30,000 € fine" for "selling or installing" a cell phone jammer. In addition to that, anyone harmed by the reception problems could sue you in civil court and try to collect financial damages (how much that would be will be up to a judge to decide). That said, note that a faraday cage around your house should not hinder reception outside your house. A faraday cage only influences reception inside the cage, not outside. However, that is off-topic here :-).
Point three should include "to the best of my knowledge and belief", or be modified to state that none of those "house or the adjacent shop" have informed the affiant of any such delivery, or delivered any such package to the affiant. It might add that the affiant had questioned such persons and they denied receiving such a delivery. The point here, of course, is to prove that the package was never properly delivered, no doubt in support of a claim on the delivery service. The ordinary assumption is that if a person in the "house or the adjacent shop" had accepted a package, it would normally have been given to the addressee at an early opportunity.
Short Answer Based on the facts you supplied, it seems the author's request for removal might be unenforceable. Explanation Section 2.a.1. of the license declares the license is irrevocable. [Emphasis added]: Subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License, the Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material to: A. reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part; and B. produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material. Irrevocable means: "Unable to cancel or recall; that which is unalterable or irreversible." Disclaimer: I am not an attorney. I am not your attorney. So don't rely on my answer for anything. Hire a real attorney if you need help with a legal matter. Never take legal advice from strangers on the internet. Treat all answers on this site the same way you would as if they came from a bunch of strangers at a party who got all their legal information by watching episodes of Boston Legal, The Practice and Ally McBeal. But have lots of opinions they are willing to share on legal questions nevertheless.
Copyright in the US is usually a civil matter. Meaning that the copyright owner can sue (typically for money damages or injunctive relief) an infringer. The criminal laws that we have are aimed at the reproducer and/or distributor. In other words, chances are that you won't get in any criminal trouble for accessing academic articles of dubious origin. But never say never. RIP Aaron Schwartz.
Can he name a particalur one, like Linkin Park? Or that would be considered non-allowed type of advertising? Generally speaking, that does not constitute unlawful advertising. Public figures are allowed to broadcast their preferences on issues that are more sensitive than topics of music. There might be few, rare exceptions where something like this would be outlawed, but most likely that has to do with a regime's censorship of specific bands or music styles rather than with a general prohibition.
Nobody so far has discussed Electoral law e.g. Representation of the People Act 1983 There are various clauses that may be relevant, one of which is: A voter shall be guilty of bribery if before or during an election he directly or indirectly by himself or by any other person on his behalf receives, agrees, or contracts for any money, gift, loan or valuable consideration, office, place or employment for himself or for any other person for voting or agreeing to vote or for refraining or agreeing to refrain from voting. Subsection 2 similarly makes it an offence to offer employment to induce any voter to vote or refrain from voting but somewhat less concisely. I believe this would make such a contract unenforceable.
The funding of public-service broadcasting in Germany was changed effective 2013-01-01. Under the current rules (Rundfunkbeitragsstaatsvertrag, in German), a monthly fee is to be paid for every single unit of housing (flat or single-family house), unless it is uninhabitated. It is otherwise immaterial how many people live there or whether any of them owns a receiver¹ or not. Certain people are exempt from the broadcasting fee or eligible to a reduced fee; however, in a multi-person housing unit, this only applies if each inhabitant satisfies the criteria for exemption or reduction. The “ARD ZDF Deutschlandradio Beitragsservice”, or Beitragsservice² for short, is the entity tasked with collecting the broadcasting fees. According to section 2(1) of the Rundfunkbeitragsstaatsvertrag, if a housing unit has multiple inhabitants, they are jointly and severally liable for the broadcasting fee. This means that the Beitragsservice gets to choose which inhabitant they claim the money from; and apparently, in your case, they have chosen you. You, in turn, can claim a proportionate amount of the fee from your flatmates or former flatmates, according to general principles of civil law. This may be difficult in practice, though, if your former flatmates aren’t willing to pay or are hard to reach; enforcing your claim may be time-consuming and costly. Regarding the announced visit, I can only speculate. One possibility is that the Beitragsservice might want to check whether your flat is really just a single unit of housing; if one of your flatmates, e.g., has a separate entrance, their room might be another unit for which they would have to pay their own broadcasting fee. (Note that Beitragsservice representatives have no special rights; you are never required to invite them in.) A second, more unpleasant possibility is that the matter has already progressed and a bailiff will appear in order to carry out a distraint. (They do have special rights, and it is not a good idea to try and lock them out.) If the letter is indeed from the city administration, that unfortunately hints at the second possibility. In that case, you should definitely see a lawyer, as soon as possible. ¹&nbsp;Note that under the rules valid until 2012, where it did matter, a computer with Internet access was also considered a radio, termed a “neuartiges Rundfunkgerät” (“novel radio receiver”). ²&nbsp;It used to be known as Gebühreneinzugszentrale, GEZ, an acronym that is still often used informally.