(Most) TV-owning Danes are used to paying the biannual TV License Fee, which pays for the ability to receive public TV and radio broadcasts[1] from DR (Danmarks Radio). But now, in an attempt to rake in some more money, they have decided, that since they put up some of their shows (far from all of them and none of the syndicated shows/movies), everybody with access to the internet from their homes will have to pay up.
Up to now you only had to pay if you owned some sort of TV tuner and/or a radio receiver (the TV license fee and Radio license fee, respectively), but from Jan. 1, 2007 everyone owning an internet capable device and a connection as fast as or faster than 256 kbps will have to pay the TV license fee.

Seriously… I’d probably use it a little every now and then if I was able to, but they do not even support Linux! I am actually able to watch the shows with a some human interaction with the sources of the pages that embeds the video stream and a little going through the ASF playlist files manually to copy/paste the actual stream URLs to my media player of choice. I am not sure that my dad would be able to do that though — or for that case, nor would most of my Linux- (and Mac-)using friends.
OK, great, so I am actually able to watch the shows… Good, because their FAQ specifically states, that even if you use Linux or Mac (and are thus (in most cases) unable to watch the programs) you still have to pay. And as far as I know, this also goes for game consoles with internet access and cell phones that are capable of WAP, GPRS etc… I guess, even my Nintendo DS is enough, since I am able to buy a browser for it and use it to access the web. Same goes for all the PSPs out there.

Another problem presents itself…
Until very recently I was on a 256/256 kbps connection and that was definitely not fast enough to even watch the low-quality streams from DR without major hiccups or buffering half the show before pressing start. I would say that a 1 mbps pipe would be the slowest possible, to watch their streams — and the quality would still be questionable at best. (Especially the sound, they are really doing a bad job compressing that.)

To lay down some facts now… I own an old Thinkpad R32 running Debian Linux (unstable) on what is now a 1024/128 kbps[2] connection, I don’t own neither a TV or a radio (and I am getting along just fine, thanks). Until now, I have not been paying the license fees, which is perfectly legal, because I am not able to watch or listen to their programming, nor do I have any desire to. But, from Jan. 1, 2007, where nothing in my life changes — except for the calendar year — I will have to cough up 2000 DKK (~355 USD / ~270 EUR) a year just because I have a computer (and a Nintendo DS) and an internet connection. That is half a month’s income for a student such as me — it doubles the cost of my internet connection!

Now, the question is: is this fair?
I say NO!, not by a long shot! If DR wants people to pay for the content they access over the internet, then they will have to put some access control on their website, which can easily be done[3] — that is the only sensible way to do this; not force everyone with an internet capable device to cough up. This is the government forcing people to pay DR (a public service TV network, for crying out loud!) for having an internet connection!
By this logic, I should start lobbying for the government, so they can make everyone pay for being able to access lillesvin.net. That’s public service too! I’m telling you all the things you didn’t know you wanted to know… And all the things you didn’t know you didn’t care to know.
This reminds me so much about when Jubii.dk (a danish search engine that started out as a ripoff of Yahoo!) started talking about making the ISPs pay for their costumers being able to access the search engine — and take my word for it if you have not tried it out, it is nothing special. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Not surprisingly, that idea did not quite get the support that Jubii.dk had hoped for.

1

This is not to be confused with the likes of the American public access channels. DR actually run some decent programs every now and then.

2

The good people at Tele2 upped my downstream from 256 kbps to 1024 kbps! Wow, that’s a friggin’ 400% increase!!! OMG!!!1 … And, well, they downed my upstream from the lousy 256 kbps to an even lousier 128 kbps… They were even kind enough to give me notice 5 days after… Can they do that?!? I mean, decrease my upstream… I’ve got a server running on this line — 256 kbps was bad enough!

3

Hire me to do it — I would love to!