How to legally avoid paying the RAI TV licence and still watch TV
Don't want to pay the RAI TV licence without risking fines or penalties? You can, and here is how.
First of all, the law on this, however questionable, is very clear, as the ads say: whatever you do with your TV, it is a tax on owning the device, so there are no buts.
But I found one BUT (as big as a house).
A few months ago a ministerial clarification stated that the TV licence is not due for owning multimedia devices (computers, smartphones, tablets, in other words all devices that can in themselves connect to the internet).
Another interesting point, in the written answer of 26 April 2012 by the Minister of Economic Development Corrado Passera (annex B of session no. 626, to question 4-15099 submitted by Giuseppe Giulietti), concerns which devices are subject to the licence fee: only those able to receive television signals over terrestrial and satellite platforms.
In his words, these devices are characterised by a tuner, whose essential function is to pick up the antenna signal in the bands reserved for broadcasting, and by the autonomous ability to deliver the broadcasting service.
So? Yes, we can get rid of the much-hated RAI licence for good, fully within the law and without being tax evaders.
Needless to say, almost all TV channels are available by streaming (that is, over the internet), so we can still watch what we want on any PC, smartphone or tablet. We can even watch the latest films just out at the cinema, TV series just broadcast, football matches and any sport we like LIVE.
The nice thing is that the solution is not to throw away your TV and watch everything on other devices. I'm telling you how to keep watching everything you watch now, and more (almost all of it in HD), on your beloved 50-inch TV that you paid a fortune for just because it was HD, even though they only offer you 4-5 HD channels (but that's another story for another article).
Back to your TV: its only fault (poor thing) is that it receives TV channels through the antenna (wait, wasn't that what it was built for?), so we need to act on it and stop it receiving the signal. Just physically disable the tuner, for example by switching it off or disconnecting it (you'll need an expert if it's built in). Another option is to use a PC monitor; you can find very large ones. At this point we have our nice TV that receives no signal, so we are within the law.
Now how do we watch programmes on the TV?
Nothing could be easier, and again there are two options. You do need internet at home, ideally with WiFi.
The first is to connect your PC to the TV with an HDMI cable, or through the PC input if your TV has one, so everything you see on your monitor also appears on the TV.
The second is to use WiFi. Buy a small WiFi dongle, available online for just over €10 or in any Chinese shop for €25-30, called WeCast, EasyCast, MiraCast and so on.
The WeCast dongle has an HDMI connector and a USB cable for power, plus a WiFi transmitter (a separate WiFi from your internet one). Don't worry, the latest TVs all have the right connections for WeCast. Once it's plugged into the TV and set up, you can connect from your device (PC, smartphone, tablet) and use the Screen Mirroring (or WiFi Direct) function to link it to the TV, so everything you see on the tablet (for example) also appears on your TV.
To sum up: your device connects to your home WiFi for internet access, so you browse on that WiFi, while Screen Mirroring connects to the second WiFi, which only carries the audio and video signals from your device to your TV or monitor.
And that's it: we're watching channels, films, TV series, football and other sports, YouTube videos and listening to music on our smartphone, sending the audio and video to the TV, without breaking the law and, above all, without paying one of the most hated taxes in Italy, the RAI licence.
