"It already has "exclusive free and pay TV rights" to the intergalactic franchise..."

So that episode of Voyager on Sky One at this very moment must, logically, have escaped through a hole in sub-space from an alternate reality where Sky bought the rights instead of Virgin!

there new versions look very good

That Virgin On Demand will be showing TNG and Voyager in addition to DS9 and Enterprise? In fact, what of the animated series?

you accidently put "hundreds of hours" in inverted comments, and not the word "enjoy"....

As are the double NG episodes showing on BBC2 at around 2:30am every Saturday.

If it's Classic Trek and TNG then this is good news. I'll just want to avoid all of Voyager and the early Enterprise episodes...

Star Trek.... great... I watched all those when I should have been working at Uni. What they need is lost, prison break, heroes, battlestar galactica and everything else we used to enjoy before they borked the skyone deal.

Making even trivial errors in a Star Trek one will result in the Wrath of Khan.

In the UK one needs a television license to 'receive or record television broadcast services' and this law was written with transmission in mind. It's perfectly legal to own equipment that can receive signals, so long as it is not used for the purposes of receiving or recording. 'Used' is the operative word. Don't bother arguing with me - I'm right. If you think I'm wrong, call up TV Licensing first and ask them before you spout incorrect info and get shot down in flames.

As a result, you can buy a TV and video / DVD player and rent DVD's, or a friend can record something for you at their house and you can play it back at a later date in your house. This is called Time Shifting and is perfectly legal under TV Licensing law.

I don't watch TV and so don't need a license, however I would quite like to see Star Trek on VoD as there are quite a few episodes I've missed (yes I fail at geek).

Now... as I see it, VoD is not broadcast, and therefore people should not be able to be prosecuted for watching it without a TV License. If you accidentally turn the TV on to a broadcast channel, then yes you are breaking the law, but I don't see how VoD could be classed any differently than time shifting.

I wouldn't be so sure if I were you. My new TV licence mentions computers.

Try to make sense out of the Communications Act 2003, part 3, chapter 2, section 232 although section 232 seems to contradict this somewhat.

I dunno, I'm not a lawyer but I think they have you by the balls no matter what you do.

I researched this - basically it includes 'any device used to receive television broadcast services' - this covers computers for example if they have a capture card in, but only if that capture card is *used* to 'receive or record television broadcast services' - simply owning the card does not require a license. It also covers computers if they are used with for example RealPlayer to view a live feed from the BBC - if it's 'live' and you are watching a feed of that, then it comes under broadcasting. I don't see how VoD could be considered broadcasting, as by it's very nature it isn't 'broadcast' at all but is supplied on a user by user basis. Obviously if this is the case then I expect the law will get changed sharpish as we can't have a situation where people are not fleeced for extra tax.

The added danger with streaming media I spotted during the World Cup - remember TV Licensing chirping up that if employees in companies watched the live football on their computers then this is illegal without a TV License? This is true - if a computer is used to watch a live feed, a TV License is indeed required for the whole company. Where it gets interesting is the main difference between someone turning on a TV and watching without a license and someone using a computer, is the computer viewing is *logged* and is auditable.

Now, imagine if TV Licensing were to trawl through the IP addresses of fixed company networks tracked viewing the live football, and checking the WHOIS database against the TV License database to see who has one and who doesn't. They could do this retrospectively if the data is still around, and I think there are some interesting RIPA data retention clauses if investigation of crime is involved.

Err, apart from the occasional exception (only one very bad early episode of TNG springs to mind) Star Trek takes place entirely in our own galaxy. It is therefore merely interstellar, not intergalactic. Get it right.

Sorry - you can't use the word "Intergalactic". The Beastie Boys invented that word and nobody else can use it. At least if you subscribe to the RHCP and Californication school of thinking...........