January 9, 1983

WHEN does watching television become a crime? According to spokesmen for the Long Island Cable Television Council, the crime begins when a viewer turns on a cable television program that has not been properly paid for. The council is a voluntary coalition of the nine cable television operators servicing Nassau and Suffolk Counties. It was formed last summer to combat theft of cable television services. The council has found that the question of what determines proper payment has in some cases not yet been settled. Along with the music and motion-picture industries, which have been involved in extensive litigation concerning home recording and its possible violation of copyright, the cable television industry is confronting a situation in which the electronic advances of the last decade are reshaping the definition of what the public is legally entitled to.

Critics may be jaded, as members of the public sometimes complain. But they have their reasons: the very nature of their job puts them in constant confrontation with the egregious - which can be amusing, in a grim sort of way - or, more commonly, with the merely mediocre. Thus no one is more happy than the critic who stumbles upon a performance that breathes fresh life into even the most weary of warhorses. Of course, there is no mystical dividing line between revelatory experiences and unutterable boredom. A too-frequently programmed standard played decently and honorably can still give pleasure, even to a jaded critic. But the revelations remain special, in part for the immediate experience they offer but also for their function as standard-setters for more conventional concert encounters.

TRENTON GOVERNOR KEAN showed perseverance in leading the Legislature to accept a compromise package of taxes on Dec. 31, just in time to avert $150 million in service and state-aid cuts over the next six months. Now, with tempers just beginning to cool from the pressure-filled year-end session, Mr. Kean will go before both houses of the Legislature Tuesday to give his State of the State address and talk about further problems. In that address and in his more important budget message next month, he will talk about the built-in escalators that force state spending up each year and make budget crises a recurring and unwelcome annual drama. The Legislature has passed, and Mr. Kean has signed, bills increasing the state sales tax from 5 to 6 percent and raising, also by one percentage point, the state income tax on gross earnings above $50,000.

Local governments and nonprofit organizations are dropping out of the Social Security System at an accelerating rate, aggravating its financial problems. Blaming soaring payroll taxes, doubts about the long-term solvency of the system and a serious local financial squeeze, Los Angeles County dropped out Dec. 31, the country's largest local government to do so yet. The defection by the county, with its 55,000 employees, will mean Social Security will lose more than $130 million a year in this instance alone. Under Federal law, local governmental agencies and nonprofit employers may withdraw after giving two years' notice of their decision to do so.

Inmates at the Ossining Correctional Facility here seized 16 guards as hostages and took over their cell block containing 600 convicts last night, the state Department of Correctional Services said. Inmates in Block B seized the Correction officers at 7:40 P.M. while all of the 2,150 inmates of the maximum-security prison were out of their cells during the evening recreational period, according to Lou Ganim, a spokesman for the department. ''We've been told that the hostages are in a safe place away from the other inmates,'' said Mr. Ganim, at around 1:30 A.M. today. He said that negotiations with the inmate representatives had been going on ''for three hours by telephone,'' with the state being represented by ''crisis intervention teams'' from Albany and from the prison staff. There was no immediate indication what the inmates' grievances or demands might be, Mr. Ganim said.