PC/MAC/iOs/Andriod fee in Sweden!

Yes. It's true.

The swedish government now forces every single PC/MAC owner to pay a fee of 300US$ per year for owning a PC/MAC. This new law also includes Cellphones(even non smart) and tablets. The fee is a TV licence, because SVT (Sveriges Television Public radio and TV) wants PC/Mac owners to pay for their online service even if you don't use it, instead of making it a premium service. Every single device that can go to SVT.se or m.svt.se is now forced to pay 300$ a year.

This is just to f***ed up to be true.. I live in Luleå,Sweden and i don't own a TV and the only "TV" i watch is from pay per view shows, youtube and Netflix.. ofc i watch giantbomb.

How stupid is this from a level of 1-100... i think 10000000 but that's my opinion.

The UK has a TV license fee of £145.50 and i think its just a con.

We're trying to take it to the EU, because it's ungodly criminal. The people who get the money, decide who should pay the money, and the half of the lot that gets the money are the people doing the radio and they are good people - and they get f'all of the money.

Of course this would be easier if we all had better income, we're already bleeding out the ass for everything but medicare..

@wwfundertaker: You have a TV license fee... but are you required to pay the fee if you own a telephone, computer, gaming console or tablet?

@slydotcom: I believe it includes any device even capable of accessing TV content which would include all of those thing. Probably not a landline telephone.

$300 per household. person, or device?

@blastroid: Per household

Funny how this thread appeared the same day I got roped into paying for a TV license even though I don't have any TV signal coming in to my apartment. The whole idea of a TV license is just an outdated concept if you ask me. At this point it's basically just a fee for living in the country as the laws for who it entails is like 99% coverage. If they are that desperate to cover anyone possible why even make it a targeted fee and not just make the whole thing funded by normal taxes.

Before: If you owned a TV, you had to pay a TV license for two TV channels with shitty poorly budgeted and often overbudgeted to failure content that all media shits upon where the yearly highlight is Eurovision Song Contest and what leads up to it.

After: If you own even computer parts that are able to be combined into a machine able of running an OS with Flash support that can get to their website that places some episodes of their productions online, you have to pay, even if you never go there, even if you ISP blocks the domain.

-

This is like taking money from gun manufacturers because their guns can be used for criminal activities. This is like placing men in prison because they have penises and the penis is evil. This is something decided by two government joints, then sent for voting in the government and passed.

The people in the government, those 349, they made 55 000 SEK a month each in 2010. That's over $8000 of a monthly pay with meetings every thursday that always are to 50%+ empty seats. A lot of those rich muthas weren't paying the TV license in the first place, we've had financial ministers get nabbed, one hadn't been paying for over twenty years.

But students, low-income workers, retired and not-yet-retired-though-too-sick-to-work people take one kick after another. Local transport's also getting more expensive year by year with everything else, incomes, even student incomes aren't increasing anywhere near the rate they need to in order to keep up.

This needs to be defeated in court, hard, or there will be blood and I will stand for those acts.

Wow, that is ridiculous.

I don't pay the TV license because I don't watch TV, and if I did I wouldn't pay unless I watched the state channels, which will never happen.

@slydotcom: Yeah it includes any device that is capable of receiving video content. The telephone landline has its own fee as well.

@wwfundertaker: Yes and you can get internet from the landline so that's another fee.

@slydotcom: Tax, VAT and miscellaneous fees. Im surprised they dont charge us for every toilet flush.

This is so fcuking stupid.. i pay 59$ a month for internet and now it adds another 300$ per year.. 1008$ per year for internet..

That's flabbergastingly stupid if entirely accurate. You should take action. Grab stones, throw them at windows of high-importance political buildings, spray paint "SMASH THE STATE" onto large pieces cardboard, brandish your angry signs in front of politicians' houses, and burn the streets. This should not stand.

@snail: I feel like doing that actually.... and yes it's accurate.. you need to pay the fee if you own a device that can use their service.. including computers,tv(obviously),tablets and cellphones.

I'm sorry.... i forgot to add video game consoles.. since you have a web browser built into the consoles.

Karma?

You can just not pay. I (as well as many relatives and friends) have never paid the TV licence fee, despite owning TVs. It's up to Radiotjänst to prove that you own a device capable of viewing SVT's shitty programs, and their inspectors are nowadays literally not allowed to set foot in your home even if you invite them. They can knock on your door but as long as they can't see your TV/PC/whatever from there you can tell them "No, I don't own any of those devices" and you should be good.

in the UK i don't mind the TV licence because of the excellent quality of the BBC content, and wouldn't like to lose it if it had to rely on advertising. It's £145.50 which works out at less than £0.40 a day.

I'd pay if I was in the UK because that is freaking wonderful content.

Last acceptable-or-better original content out of these SVT channels was..

Um..

Hrm..

..

Varan-TV (Fast Show-like but next to no budget), aired 1997-1998

That sucks... I'm sorry to hear that. :(

I'm just a "stupid American" so I can't speak to it in any way other then to say... Thats a super bummer.

@somejerk

: right, well i guess there's an issue. For our £0.40 a day we get 24hr rolling news channel, Football (soccer) coverage (Mainly Premier league highlights show, but also World Cup, UEFA cup and confederates cup live) as well as other sports such as Formula One, an on demand service on every platform imaginable including consoles, 9 BBC TV channels (Although other networks such as Ch4 get a share of the licence they have advertisements), Lots of Radio stations and much more.

And that's before you get to the content such as Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sherlock, and many documentaries and niche shows that wouldn't get commissioned if it was a commercial network.

Also, although state funded it has a charter to remain impartial and to "Inform, Educate and Entertain", so there's no propaganda or bias toward the government on it.

@slydotcom: This is fairly common. It is the same in Germany and Switzerland. In Switzerland it is nearly 500$. I bought a TV since I had to pay anyway. (how is this a PC forum topic?)

That's fucking terrible news. Are they really that desperate for revenue? I knew that young people don't really "own" tvs, but I didn't know it was this bad.

I hope it doesn't make it over here in Norway.

Alright, we need to clear some things up here.

The allowence that you get from the state as a student and as a job applicant should cover this fee. They even raised the allowence for student in Sweden in order to get this through, so there's really know meaning of nagging here.

This doesn't effect you in a way of matter of life and death. You will be able to live, and you will have world-class TV and radio, enjoy it! :)

@lanerobertlane said:

Begrudgingly I have to agree with this sentiment. Also, there are ways of getting out of it, as discussed here:

You don't need a licence if you don't use any of these devices to watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV - for example, if you use your TV only to watch DVDs or play video games, or you only watch ‘catch up’ services like BBC iPlayer or 4oD.

The above point taken into consideration, you may as well pay it anyway. It only takes a second to violate your declaration and the consequences for doing so are much more costly.

You should read up on the changes they have done the last few years =/

As already mentioned I now have to pay the license eventhough I do not recieve any TV signals.

This. BBC is a national treasure and it would be awful if it went away.

The most stupid part of this whole thing might be the price point. You know, just what kind of service is even worth 300$ a year? Not only is this an incredibly stupid way to try to find a business model compatible with the ever-increasing reach of growing internet technologies, but also a really blatant way of taking advantage of people for no apparent reason.

What exactly do you get with the service? Just a TV channel? Several? Some sort of Swedish Netflix?

You have a world class news service because of it. I'm in Canada and I wish I had a news service I could trust. Instead the taxpayer funded CBC is always desperate for money. Their reliance on NHL advertising is getting worse and their news website has to resort to click traps and link bait. I haven't turned on a TV in 6 years (except to watch election results because of government regulated internet blackouts on election results) but I would gladly pay a TV license fee if it meant getting quality journalism.

So, the paywall is technically an open floodgate that forces you to pay? That seems bizarre and "unconstitutional", or whatever the Swede equivalent is. I assume this is a government law as opposed to some business model, as making someone pay requires enforcement.

Instead of speculating, can someone link an article?

That does suck for sure OP, we recently had a change in the way media licences are paid to our national broadcast channel here in Finland too.

It was changed into a tax and now i have to pay 140e a year so i can legally listen to their radio at work. I havent owned a TV in years simply because i dont need one.

Now, i have been paying for Netflix since it was available here and intend to pay in the future because that service i actually watch.

@ch3burashka:

http://www.thelocal.se/48656/20130624/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_Sweden

edit: http://www.radiotjanst.se/en/

@icemael: It's hard to say that when they are calling on your cellphone..

@snail: You get SVT1,SVT2,SVT24 and Kundskapskanalen channels and 5 FM radio stations.. but they have a few more radiostations that are online only.

@slydotcom: Well, they don't know what make of cell phone you have.

And all of the Varan-TV content isn't even available :(

Still, at least they didn't put it on the tax bill like they previously said. 1% of your income each month. I mean fucking hell, I pay less for my 100/100 mbit fiber, phone and a bunch of TV-channels together.

I feel your pain, we've had that shitty "Medie Licens" here in Denmark for ages.
Usually it was a fee we had to pay for TV(and only for like, two channels I think. But we HAD to pay it) but now since "you can watch our stuff on our website" we have to pay for it even if we like, didn't own a radio or a TV. It fucking sucks

@icemael: It doesn't matter..^^

@slydotcom: We have had the same thing in Denmark since 2007, I don't necessarily mind having one and can understand why they changed it, as before if you watched TV through a PC with a TV-tuner, it would be free. This caused retailers to even advertise selling "the equipment you need to watch TV free!". So I can understand the PC should probably require one, but Cellphones? I would rather watch it on one of these:

(Kinda want one now...)

Also the way DR (Denmark's Radio) choose to administer it is ridiculous. It should be based on income and deducted through tax. Instead they send out a letter every year which you yourself are responsible for getting paid. Whatever the case, the way they go about making sure people who are obligated to pay have paid, is by calling on the phone quizzing them until you admit to having a device requiring a Media-license or having access to one where you live. All this bureaucracy just because they feel if it was deducted through tax, they would be less independent. I don't really see how it is any different and I kinda suspect the fines people have to pay for getting caught is just a better income.

@slydotcom: Yes it does. This is the law: http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Lagar/Svenskforfattningssamling/Lag-198941-om-finansiering-_sfs-1989-41/

2 a § Den som innehar en TV-mottagare ska betala radio- och TV-avgift till Radiotjänst i Kiruna Aktiebolag

2 § En TV-mottagare är en sådan teknisk utrustning som är avsedd att ta emot utsändning eller vidaresändning av TV- program, även om utrustningen också kan användas för annat ändamål.

There are older cell phones that have no video-playing or Internet capabilities whatsoever, and there is no interpretation of the law that would require you to pay the fee for owning one of those.

Now they want a dead man to pay the tv fee...SWEDISH SRC: http://www.metro.se/stockholm/daniel-dog-utan-att-nagon-markte-det/EVHmfx!RJHbxJDMtr5k/

Solution: GET THE FUCK OUT OF SWEDEN.

So, is this a form of government subsidy for national TV / radio, only replace the word 'government' with 'public'? Because it seems bizarre to force people to support a particular industry.

A somewhat reasonable way to handle it would be to require the license for the TV tuner/HDTV box (which would be closer to the way the law is written - it clearly states that devices with the explicit purpose of accessing a broadcast TV signal need to be licensed, for computers that's an optional, additional feature, not a core function), and then get an access code for the web content on the invoice. Forcing every computer owner to pay for that content is pretty weird, as owning a computer of some kind isn't exactly something you can opt out of in today's society, unlike the TV. Even if you don't have a job you pretty much need computer access to even register at the employment agency, or applying to University courses.

I definitely support "public tv" and "public radio" but they really should collect these fees per year or as a sales tax. PBS/NPR are excellent in the US and the alphabet soup of BBC/CBC/ABC often have stellar programs that are great to watch or listen too just for the news.