Slashdot Log In
$180 Million for Piracy Conspiracy
Posted by
michael
on Sat Jun 28, 2003 04:00 PM
from the arrrr-matie dept.
from the arrrr-matie dept.
theCoder writes "According to an AP story printed in the Orlando Sentinel, Steven R. Frazier has been ordered to pay $180 million restitution for attempting to sell a device that would decrypt the satellite signals sent into everyone's homes. In addition to spending the next 5 years in Federal prison, Frazier will have to pay $500 a month for the next 30,000 years, though no one really expects him to live long enough to make all the payments. That value is based on estimated loses DirectTV and Echostar may have incurred had Frazier been able to sell his devices. Being ordered to pay restitution for actual damages is one thing, but paying for some made up number of future damages? Maybe if I catch someone trying to break into my car, I can sue him for the damage he would have caused if he succeeded..."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
too harsh (Score:5, Insightful)
they don't put people to death for attempted murder, do they? that seems a little harsh to me.
Re:too harsh (Score:5, Funny)
No, but sometimes they do issue more than one death sentence. I guess they do that just in case being dead once already isn't enough.
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:4, Informative)
Another reason for this is making the sentence stick. If one of the crimes was successfully appealed, the sentence for the other(s) would still stand.
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, there was a trial, and the guy was planning to sell a device. Maybe what he was doing was illegal, and maybe he deserves a jail sentence.
But the court stopped him before any damages were incurred. The actual damages to the satellite companies is zero. Being ordered to pay $180 million in "potential damages" is absurd.
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:5, Insightful)
Where you get punished for doing things you MIGHT have done, if the superior police force hadn't nabbed you before your little malicious ideas came to fruition!
100% Accurate!
Gah, it's always scary when a movie plot comes true in real life....
OK So maybe the guy "deserved" to get punished, because he was "intentionally" building a device that was designed to "hack" into signals, but the fact is he's being held accountable for things that never happened, except in The Magical Fairyland of DirectTV's wild imagination.
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:4, Insightful)
A man who schemed to steal satellite television signals now has something much bigger than a cable bill to pay -- a whopping $180 million restitution order on which he is to make $500 monthly payments.
He's not being charged the full $180 million (which is probably excessive, but it really doesn't matter) he's being charged $500 a month for life. That charge really isn't inflated.
It costs Dish Networks around $500 to aquire a single new customer. That $500 represents the cost of advertising, instalation (which is done for free), discounts on equipment, and other incentives. Since most Dish and DirecTV plans involve your ownership of the equipment once you're on the plan the companies have no way to recoup that cost if you can pirate the signal.
This guy is being charged the rather reasonable amount of $500. If that means his device ends up being used by one new Dish or DirecTV customer every month, they will break even.
He got off easy.
As a disclaimer, I am currently an employee of Echostar Dish Networks. As my views are not necessarily those of my employer I am posting this anonymously.
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:5, Insightful)
And a common theory is that the people who would have used that device will find alternatives and wouldn't have signed up with Dish/DirectTV anyway. Granted, that's just speculation, but then again so is their $900million number.
And while he won't ever actually pay out $180 million at $500/month, its still on the books. It still sets a ridiculous precedent, and might encourage other industries to use this sort of business model.
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:5, Insightful)
I know, lets send the cops out, and just give out speeding and parking tickets at random. 'cause, everyone was planning on speeding that day, and everyone will at some time park illegally.
You'll be first in line to pay your thoughtcrime fines right?
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:4, Interesting)
This "potential" damage crap is just ludicrous. I don't give a rat's ass what some employee from one of the Dish companies thinks to the contrary.
Anything else takes us down the path to thought control.
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:3, Insightful)
This will be reduced, at least, on appeal. It's like many of the multi-million dollar judgements (ie, the MacDonald's too hot coffee) that make the headlines, but they end up being awarded a fraction of the original amount.
Re:too harsh (Score:3, Insightful)
Its not like someone sued because they saw steam coming out of the cup and were concerned that there was potential to get burned.
Hell, I'm gonna start suing cars that pass me on the highway, because they potentially could have run into me, causing an accident which could have injured me to the point that I could no longer work. There's go
Re:too harsh (Score:5, Informative)
Mickey D's had the temperature of their coffee for years at over 180+ degrees...at least that is what they served it at. At that temperature, a third degree burn occurs in seconds if the coffee is spilled on someone
The million dollars the plaintiff was awarded in that case was the amount McD's made on coffee in one day. The whole issue was that because of the temperature of McD's coffee (which is hotter that Starbucks), there were somewhere in the ballpark of 600 to 800 severe burns.
The theory is, if punishing McD's finacially causes them to either make better spill proof lids or but coffee cups that keep the temperature hot enough for a long time without having to make the temperature so hot, then this would prevent 600 to 800 severe burns a year
And yes, it worked, McD's improved their lids, their cups, and decreased the temperature of the coffee. I don't remember how much this cut down on severe burns a year, but its was over an 80% decrease.
Additionally, because of this case, other fast found joints, i.e. BK lounge, also changed their coffee lids, cups, and temperature....Starbucks and Caribou coffee then implemented the policy of never giving a drink to a patron unless the top is on it...
So, because of the McD's coffee case, which seemed completely ridiculous to me too at the time...actually had a greater impact in saving money in medical cost and other social cost from severe burns by getting those that serve coffee to implement some preventive measures.
A lot of severe burns caused by accidents have been prevented because of that one case....Don't always think a case that sounds absurd doesn't have some other positive impact...
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:4, Insightful)
also, its not a fine, but a "retribution payment", payed to the satellite networks. But since they didn't lose anything, they aren't owed anything. any amount is excessive in this case.
Parent
Re:too harsh (Score:5, Insightful)
It's *REALLY* fucking difficult to pay 500 bucks a month on top of rent, bills, etc., when all you have is a job at mcdonalds.
I find that cruel, and excessive.
Parent
punishment fitting the crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:punishment fitting the crime (Score:5, Funny)
I take it you're not familiar with divorce settlements?
Parent
Re:punishment fitting the crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe for you in your nice cushy job, but some of us barely make that at all much less being able to pay bills/buy food/etc after that. Think before you speak asswipe, there are people a lot worse off than you and if 500 a month is change for you there's a lot of us.
Maybe this'll make people think before they steal IP in future.
Except he didn't steal any IP, nor did he even plan to. He had plans to potentially release a device that potentially allowed others to steal access to satellite TV. Maybe we should just go ahead and declare marshal law since everyone could potentially be a murderer.
Parent
Re:punishment fitting the crime (Score:4, Informative)
Well don't we all wish we could abdicate [reference.com][dictionary.com] the death penalty. Now if you were advocating [reference.com][dictionary.com] the death penality I'd have issues.
Sorry. I just couldn't resist being a grammer snob. This is gonna cost me some karma...
Parent
How? (Score:4, Insightful)
remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:remember... (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations are getting out of fucking hand.
Parent
Attempting to commit a crime is not a crime... (Score:5, Informative)
Read this [ncwc.edu] explanation from a political science professor, for instance, and try not to be confused. The author, in attempting to reconcile the absurd acts of modern legislatures with actual legal theory, has even managed to confuse himself:
What? He admits that a crime of omission cannot exist because it is an oxymoron. This conclusion is dependent upon the basic definition of crime that has existed since time immemorial: crime requires injury. An injury is an act committed against someone that results in harm to them.
Not doing something is not a crime; it isn't even an act. Yet, implicit also in the acceptance of "prescribed" rules of conduct being punishable as "crimes" is the acceptance of "crimes of omission," which he himself states is an oxymoron.
Thinking about doing something isn't an act, either. It would be more properly termed a thought crime, regardless of what Mr. Gates [slashdot.org] says.
It should be obvious that even the intellectual charlatans who affix themselves to the coattails of oppressive governments and attempt to explain logically it's actions cannot, in the process, help but become confused themselves.
Parent
The Lawnmower Man (Score:5, Interesting)
The Shire of Kalamunda [holiday-wa.net] (satellite city in Perth, Western Australia) has (or had) a bizarre law on its books that specified a fine for operating a two or four stroke motor between midnight and midnight on Sundays. Why so specific? Why only Sundays?
It turns out that this particular law is due to a single councilor [wa.gov.au] who lived in sunny Bickley, in Kalamunda's East Ward. Said Councillor was in the habit of going out and "raging" (nightclubbing, partying etc) every Saturday night, coming home at silly- o'clock on Saturday morning (or sometimes holding the party at his house and keeping his neighbours up to silly o'clock), and expecting to sleep in until the sun was over the crow's-nest.
The sand in this particular vaseline was his many Seventh-day Adventist neighbours [wa.gov.au], who after enjoying a refreshingly restful Sabbath day between sunset Friday and sunset Saturday would get up early on Sunday morning, full of beans, vim vigour and vitality, and start doing stuff. Like mowing their lawns not before 07:00 as per the excessive noise laws.
Three or more neighbours running two-stroke mowers was not exactly what Mr I-went-to-bed-at-04:23 wanted to hear at 07:00, so he acted. He went out and talked to his neighbours about it - not. Instead, he talked the Shire into enacting a "Blue Law [wikipedia.org]" prohibiting the operation of two-stroke motors throughout the Shire between midnight and midnight on Sundays.
Not to be outdone in the lets-resolve-this stakes, and of course turning their collective backs on 1Thessalonians5:14-15 [gospelcom.net], the dawn chorus in Bickley the following Sunday included a four-stroke-mowers section from all of his neighbours. Taking care not to abuse his position as Councillor, Mr I-went-to-bed-at-04:23 then had the law amended to include four-stroke motors.
The consequences included that as he was driving his car home at 04:07 on Sunday morning, he broke his own law. Any propellor-driven aircraft flying over the Shire were in violation, and so on. I don't think he realised how lucky he was that turbine-driven mowers are still hard to buy. (-:
Parent
Land of the free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Land of the free? (Score:5, Funny)
Man this dude's gonna be pissed when we discover the secret to immortality in 50 years time!
Parent
To a Certain Extent It Makes Sense (Score:3, Insightful)
Murder or robbery is a bad example. Everyone knows how to do it, there isn't much special knowledge involved.
It's very, very apples to oranges.
Re:To a Certain Extent It Makes Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Did the information get free? Did the [sarcasm]poor corporations[/sarcasm] lose a lot of money? You don't put people to death if they don't actually kill someone. similarly, you ought not be fined for money that could have been lost, but wasn't.
food for thought: cable descramblers aren't that hard to come by, yet cable companies, cable networks, etc. seem to be doing just fine. I doubt that had this information gotten out that it would have spelled the end of DirecTV, or even cost them that much.
Parent
They're already spreading it around (Score:4, Interesting)
A device like this should be completely legal. Apples to apples? It's like me reciting my own copyrighted poetry in France and then suing any bilingual Frenchman for not paying for my official translator.
Parent
Does this make anyone else sick? (Score:3, Insightful)
Many of the people that were part of this scheme dont have the money to pay for satellite legally. They chose the illegal option because it was what they can afford. Thus it is not lost revenue to the companies since these people would never have paid full price.
The same goes with things like.... ohh.. say mp3's. I would not go out and buy a cd. I have a perfecty good radio and am happy to listen to that.
Just my $0.02
Re:Does this make anyone else sick? (Score:3, Informative)
The companies say (in the article) that 3million people cost them about $4Billion per year. That's about $1,300/year/person. This guy was supposedly arranging to deliver his kit to about 5000 people, so that would come to about 6.5million per year... Thay'd have to amortize that kit over about 150 years to get a $900million price tag. More likely than not, the kit would only be good for abou
Wasn't smart enough. (Score:3, Insightful)
And why should we feel sorry for Mr. Frazier? The man probably tried to sell his findings for a profit. I say good riddance. I would feel more sympathetic towards him have he GPL'ed the decryption method.
Re:Wasn't smart enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Wasn't smart enough. (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in a highrise apartment next to Comiskey Park. I look out my window; I see an ongoing ballgame. I sit down and watch the game. I didn't pay for the right to see the game, but due to the nature of the "content", I am able to view it anyway.
Am I a criminal?
Parent
Re:Wasn't smart enough. (Score:5, Funny)
"Anyone trying to steal satellite feeds deserves to rot in jail.
Especially if he doesn't tell me how to do it too."
Parent
Re:Wasn't smart enough. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
$500/mo. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, This still seems ridiculous. I'm guessing that the $180 million figure was what would have happened if every single person who has DSS right now switched to the illegal free system. That's like Eli Lilly suing a company that made Ecstasy, based on the argument that everyone taking Prozac might switch to Ecstasy. The only way that they would have lost all of that money is if the DMCA had been repealed (although, I think decrypting satellite data may have been illegal before the DMCA, not sure though) and the devices were made legal.
Even then, they could have simply switched to a new encryption standard. Just mail out new access cards and that would be it.
(btw, I wonder how these systems work. I have a friend who's been getting free DSS TV for a couple years now, the feild is intresting)
Ouch (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine if I was create a new file sharing program, and then I was to be forced to pay restitution of $1000 a month for enternity because it could be used to illegaly distribute material (movies, software etc)
Will I create this software? Hell no. With the imaginary axe of potential damage looming over the heads of would be programers and developers, its going to become a gamble for any individual to try and develop any type of new software.
What if you build a new OS, MS or someone claims that you stole part of their code, or claims that it poses a massive security threat or whatever, use your imagination, and proactively sues you for a few billion in damages that might be caused by your software. Now your company is gone, and the big kids keep ruling the block. Where the hell is due process?
From the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that right? Satellite TV costs well over $1000 a year? No wonder people don't want to pay for it.
They can't possibly be worried about lost ad revenue, because those people are all watching the ads.
Weasel maths, I'm guessing.
Re:From the article (Score:5, Interesting)
Weasel maths, I'm guessing.
Indeed. The $4Billion they calculate is based on what it would cost those 3 million people to subscribe to every single channel available, which is what those people are supposedly watching. At least they're not adding in what it would cost to purchase every single pay-per-view (even the ones running concurrently), like they do when asking for damages in court. Nice logical rationale: "if we don't know what they watched, we must assume they watched everything-- at the same time"
Parent
Better check your math (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:From the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Another way it can cause damage is black box descramblers. They got a nasty habit of backfeeding signal up the drop. That can cause reception problems for everything feeding out of the tap(taps in boston tend to serve roughly 8 residences/tap. Though larger taps do exist). Once people start to complain of reception problems(ghosting and humbars are common), cable company rolls out a tech to fix it. Sending techs out is not free.
-Henry
Parent
Wrong priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in an area which has its share of crime. Not crime like Frazier's, ordinary crime like vandalism, graffiti, burglaries and so on. The police are always hugely overstretched in trying to respond to these things. Now house burglaries cause far more distress than anything that Frazier did. Vandalism and the like take far more out of a neighbourhood than anything Frazier did.
Yet, Frazier is worthy of some massive surveillance operation. We are entitled to ask why limited police resources were used in this way.
Kill Plagiarism Support Piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
I have come around to believing this bumper-sticker philosophy
The fact that such ridiculous court decisions are being made, with nary a chance of ever being realized (like 30,000 years, or in Jordan'case billions of dollars) means that there is a disconnect between the laws of copyright and the reality of digital distribution. Crazy models and interpretations that generally came out of the academic confines of class rooms, are now coming from the real world of the courts.
I fully respect someone's ideas, and completely am against plagarism. But I am starting to differ about how much they should be allowed to profit from them, and am starting to see how the role of piracy is underappreciated in the wide dissemination of ideas.
The decision whether piracy is good or bad must be made based on two factors:
We are in a new world, unimaginable even 10 years ago. We can make infinite and perfect copies of a product, something which we could never could earlier.
And here we are being trapped into artificial market segmentations by middlemen who, thanks to the FCC and Powell, are becoming bigger and bigger and bigger ... This is just pathetic .... (maybe I am a little harsh, but after hearing about the RIAA decision to sue thousands of file-sharers I am not in a very generous mood).
The providers of content that can be digitized, just have to forge a stronger relationship with the audience ... they have to use their static and digitized content as a "marketing and business card" towards the development of a dynamic relationship between the audience and the engines of creation.
I will reverse myself in any court of law, but right now I say Kill Plagiarism Support Piracy ...
Legal in Canada? (Score:5, Informative)
Note: I'm not taking any sides here, just bringing up a fact.
Seriously People (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time something like this happens, I always see a few people that say "good, they broke the law, they got their punishment", well I have a little something called "empathy".
Put yourself in their shoes, would you like it if you were sent to federal prison for five years just because you might have cut into the profits of an already greedy and overpaid corporation? You need to put this in perspective, people charged with assault and other various violent crimes get off easier than this. This is complete and total bullshit and you people are just going to sit there and not only take it, but praise the government for brining another "dangerous criminal" to justice. Let me make it absolutely clear that the he didn't actually do anything, he was charged with conspiracy to do something.
Doesn't the amount of power that corporations are demonstrating they have SCARE YOU at all? Or are you just to completely oblivious to the world around you?
When I Saw The Headline (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, well, back to temping...
Re:The punishment is valid (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh. Huh. And you for some reason think that if he was just giving it away for free Direct TV wouldn't have a problem with it? If you tried cracking it and they found out, they would come after you just as hard. They don't care how much money you would have made, they care how much they would have lost. The $180 million wasn't based on the profits this guy was expecting, it was based on how much Direct TV thought they would have lost.
Parent
Re:The punishment is valid (Score:5, Insightful)
Who owns the electro-magnetic fields in my house? Does DirectTV own them, or may I sample them freely?
Now, I respect the rights of DirecTV to make money by selling cable through the airwaves, but I have a real problem with the government telling me what I can and cannot do with EMFs someone else is beaming into my house.
Parent