Dickon Hood’s Comments

• Jul 13th, 2016 @ 5:50am

  It's (probably) an EU thing...

  on France Might Allow NGOs To Sell Public Domain Seeds To Non-Commercial Buyers. Might?
  According to the second half of http://www.realseeds.co.uk/terms.html there's an EU list of official seed you can market to consumers. This is probably just France's implementation of that directive being tweaked.
  
  (I have no relationship with The Real Seed Catalogue other than being a member of their club at one point by purchasing some very interesting chilli seeds from them. I do, however, recommend them.)
• Aug 20th, 2015 @ 5:52am

  Re: Re: They're extortionists

  on PRS To Increase Members' Fees To Fund Legal Expedition Against TV Station
  That doesn't always work. Not all non-geographic numbers have a geographic counterpart. I do usually check that site before dialling one, but as I'd decided I wasn't going to bother anyway I doubt I checked it for that one.
• Aug 20th, 2015 @ 1:32am

  They're extortionists

  on PRS To Increase Members' Fees To Fund Legal Expedition Against TV Station
  ...and I mean that literally.
  
  I'm a contractor, and like a lot of contractors, I contract via a limited company. Over the years, I've received several letters from the PRS demanding that I either purchase a licence from them, or telephone a premium-rate telephone number to explain to them why I don't need one, on pain of them doing a spot check and potentially court action as a result. Those premium-rate numbers typically pay a percentage of the call fee to the callee, and as a result their actions are very clearly simply demanding money with menaces.
  
  Needless to say, I haven't bothered. I don't deal with extortionists.