Radio Pirate Fares Badly

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 7, 30 August 1929, Page 7

Radio Pirate Fares Badly

Strong Action by Wellington Magistrate JN Wellington last week an unlicensed listener was fined £10 for owning and operating a set without right of license. This will probably mark the general adoption of a heavier range of fines for this offence. Previously there has been a tendency to regard this action as somewhat inoffensive, but better appreciation of the facts is now obtaining. Such an individual is robbing not the Company but the whole body of broadcast listeners, and is preventing them securing the standard of service sought by all, Stiff fines of this character imposed throughout the country for the future will encourage the P. and T. Department to an active prosecution of offenders. In commenting on ‘the case, "The Dominion’ said Gditorially: "Ten pounds seems a fairly severe. fine for listening-in with an unlicensed wireless set, but the individual who was thus dealt with by a Wellington Mazistrate last week will probably receive little sympathy from the thousands of licensed listeners-in upon whose preserves he has been poaching. This’ kind of pirating is very. difficult to detect, and it is right that offenders when caught should be sharply dealt with. If poaching were allowed by official laxity to becomie prevalent the result would mean a diminished revenue for broadcasting and a corresponding falling-off in the quality of the programmes. From this point of view those who are honest enough to take out licenses have an interest in -co-operating with those in authority in checking the poachers, for they are co-partners in the enterprise." |