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Low-power FM Transmitters Banned in UK
Acey writes "The BBC News is reporting that the Griffin iTrip falls foul of the UK Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 (PDF). In short, the iTrip is an unlicensed FM transmitter and that's not allowed. The UK distributor, A M Micro, have pulled the iTrip. More ominously they warn that "Use of the iTrip in the UK therefore constitutes an offence and can lead to prosecution of the User". Guess that makes me an outlaw, because you'll have to pry my iTrip from my cold, dead hands."
...could have anything to do with this? They are rapidly setting themselves up as 'audio-fascists', and are probably afraid that such devices would be hacked (e.g. provided with a more powerful amplifier and a bigger antenna) and thus become an unlicensed (and hence NON-MONEY-MAKING) FM station...
It seems like the RIAA want to enforce a situation where ONLY "approved", tribute-paying stations have ANY sort of FM transmitter equipment.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
... to overthrow the BBC Monopoly on broadcasting in Britain. This has to be a throwback to the kind of thinking that led to licenses to own radios and televisions, and the Gestapo-like radio detector vans. As bad as the FCC has been, on occasion, it has never been as draconian as the British governments stranglehold on the airwaves.
Why not listen to CDs or, even better, buy a new car stereo that can DO WHAT YOU FUCKING WANT?
Why the fuck is it someone else's problem how you arrange your in car entertainment? Spend some fucking money!
That was classic intercourse!
Big deal, stateside our Telly is FREE as in beer. You have some good points, but cut out the socialist dreams buddy.
I sig, therefore I was.
I'm quite alarmed at *anyone* use BBC news as their news source. The bias and uninformed reporting to say nothing of the deliberate attempts at casting news events in a certain direction of light makes what once was a good source of information for me a place I now avoid like the plauge. Excepting for the occasional moment that I feel like getting a good laugh or a good scare that is. I still don't get the concept of requiring a license to have a TV. What if you could receive signals in your fillings or dentures, would they assess you a fee then? I can't believe that on a site that promotes such freedom of liberties such as slashdot, that the people on here who live in the UK aren't screaming bloody murder every 5 seconds over such an incredibly stupid and intrusive requirement. But then I can go back and realize that anyone who trusts BBC news for accurate reporting is quite impossible to understand anyway.
I'm sure I'll get modded down, but hey, that doesn't bother near as much as the things I just wrote about.
That is all.
Yay! Big cheer for us in the UK. There's a finite amount of electromagnetic spectrum. For everybody. Unless you're an idiot who defines PI as (int) 3 theere's no way to use suits or lawyers or politicians to make more spectrum, but any idiot can trash spectrum. We bloody well _rock_ in the UK. If you disagree with this, you'd p*ss in your own drinking water and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth just thinking about it.