Former Anti-Piracy 'Bag Man' Turns On DirecTV 257
Cowards Anonymous writes "SecurityFocus has this story: 'A one-time enforcer in DirecTV's anti-piracy campaign is suing his ex-employer for wrongful discharge, after he allegedly resigned rather than continue to prosecute the company's controversial war against buyers of hacker-friendly smart card equipment.' John Fisher claims that he was hired by DirecTV as a senior investigator to track down satellite signal pirates. Instead, he claims, he was no better than a 'bag man for the mob'; coercing people into paying money for stealing services when he had no proof whether they had really done so."
You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:5, Interesting)
The point of the problem is this: They're having something in the area of a 90-95% success rate in accusing people who were actually watching DirecTV's programming without paying for it. Or, to state it in a less pretty way, they were harassing completely innocent techies with to 5-10% of their efforts.
What's worse, is that the hackers have realized that so long as they don't confess, DirecTV doesn't have enough evidence to win most of the lawsuits they're filing. In fact, successful defenses have been mounted by making no defense at all. Usually trivial motions like the standard motion a defense lawyer always makes to dismiss the case after the plantiff's case claiming they didn't meet the minimum standards of proof, or motions for summary judgement against a defendant who no-shows are not going DirecTV's way. The only people to lose cases have been ones who either confessed or said something stupid to DirecTV that gets used against them.
Yet, despite these devistating blows in court, DirecTV is continuing to operate this SCOish collectors and lawyers devision. Despite having cases of zero chance of suceeding legally, they have been able to get people to hand over settlement money such that this operation is profitable.
What we need in this country is a higher penality for filing a lawsuit that is eventually lost. Basically, people are signing admissions of guilt and sending in checks in order to get the harassing phone calls to stop, when in reality they should be calling DirecTV's bluff and letting them file the lawsuit.
It isn't SCOish (Score:3, Insightful)
SCO is enforcing conjured fantasy with no basis in reality. There are no real Linux Thieves of SCO Code.
There are DirecTV Thieves.
Or, to state it in a less pretty way, they were harassing completely innocent techies with to 5-10% of their efforts.
Failure does not necessitate innocence.
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, in this case it does. There's no crime in attempting to discramble DirecTV's signal, just in actually doing so... but nevermind, that's the business of the local Prosecutor's Office anyway to file that case.
DirecTV's filing a civil suit. And in order for there to be a civil liablity, the definitely has to be a service obtained without paying for it... no evidence that supports that having happened is the fatal flaw in these cases.
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:3, Insightful)
Even with no facts being contested, DirecTV's evidence in most of the cases simply doesn't get them to where they need to be in order to win.
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:3, Insightful)
The items purchased upon which DirecTV was basing its case have myriad uses, only one of which is actual unauthorized descrambling of DirecTV's signal. This would be like determining that since you own a car, you are automatically guilty of vehicular homicide.
Now, having one of these devices is a good start in the investigation, but more proof needs to be presented in order for DirecTV to have a case. Their shyster law firm basically set up an assembly-line operation for pressuring unsavvy victims in
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:4, Informative)
Where you bought your ISO programmer has no bearing on how you are going to use it. Even if a developer bought an ISO programmer from a site that clearly was targetting DTV pirates, the developer may have just found them to have the best price or the fastest service and purchased the programmer there. That definitely doesn't mean they planned on pirating DTV any more than buying a car at a dealership known to sell lots of cars to drug dealers mean you plan on engaging in the drug trade.
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, maybe this is a troll, but I have to respond/rant. There are no DirecTV thieves. And if there are, then the police should track down the people who stole equipment or other property from DirecTV and make them return it (in addition to facing charges).
If DirecTV wants to put a satellite in orbit and have that satellite broadcast digital information that anyone with a satellite dish can receive, then they shouldn't be upset when people do just that. NBC isn't upset if I put up an antenna to receive the stuff they broadcast -- in fact, they're happy I do. DirecTV has already done all the work necessary to get the signal to my home -- whether I view it doesn't affect their costs at all (for the record, I don't have satellite TV, and with companies like DirecTV running things, I probably never will).
DirecTV is trying to sell and control both sides of the transmission, and frankly, I don't think the law should be on their side. They chose, and in fact got special permission, to send these signals. They're using up part of the EM spectrum, the public's EM spectrum, mind you, and then turning around and expecting the government to stop people from listening to what they broadcast.
Sure, you'll say that it's not economically viable for DirectTV to not charge customers by the month, and to that, I say so be it! Somehow over the air broadcast TV survived, and flourished. Broadcast towers require maintenance, just like satellites. Do you think TV would have ever become as popular as it is today if broadcast TV wasn't free? DirecTV could have made a killing selling dishes and access to broadcast on the network, and then thre wouldn't even be an issue of people listening to a signal they're not supposed to hear. The fact that DirecTV thinks the govenment should enforce the current arrangement and the government agrees is bad enough. DirecTV's barratry/blackmail against innocent smart card developers (and even the not so innocent ones) is disgusting, and should be itself illegal.
There are bigger problems in the world than some people watching satellite TV without paying DirecTV for the privilege!
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually satellites are not designed to be maintained. It is only the rare satellite that receives servicing, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. This is for two reasons: servicing missions are absurdly expensive, and most TV satellites are in a geosynchronous orbit, which is unreachable by the Shuttle.
In fact this is the main problem with your argument. The money for the broadcasting infrastructure has to come from one of three places: advertisers, viewers, or the government. Not many people agree that the government should pay so that everyone can watch satellite TV. Furthermore, remembering that satellites can't be maintained, the costs and risks of satellite broadcasting are orders of magnitude larger than terrestrial broadcasting. Launches are expensive, and if something breaks (or if technology advances), the only option is to launch a new satellite. It's not viable to ask advertisers to bear the sole responsibility for subsidising the medium, especially since people are bitching even now about the amount of advertising on TV.
As for your claim that "DirecTV could have made a killing selling dishes," you're advocating that DirecTV should use the access equipment to subsidize the service? How would this be different from using smart cards?
The fact is that DirecTV is not viable without paying subscribers. So once again we encounter the problem of common good versus the I-want-my-MTV mentality. Why is it that people think that, just because they can do something, they have a right to do so?
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2)
Exactly the point. This useless "service" is not viable. The only reason it exists is because a bunch of usurpers managed to pervert and twist laws into a mess that affords them protection in implementing any hair-brained, money making scheme as long as it has words "copyright" or "intellectual property" in its description.
I cant stand people so brainwashed that they actually think: "but they would not make any money on this so we must give u
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:3, Insightful)
Fair enough, though I was more referring to monitoring the satellites, sending data to them, correcting their orbits, and even to some extent preparing to replace them when they need to be retired (that sho
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2)
Let me say firstly that I don't support bully tactics. But I don't reject the idea that media companies should have legal protection for their signals.
I can't find a link, but I remember a court case some time ago involving a farmer whose land was crossed
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:3, Interesting)
When I first read this I took it opposite of the way I think you intended it.
i.e. Actually the common good is served by NOT making it illegal to decrypt this stuff because such a law is overly restrictive of personal freedom. So the 'pirates' are actually acting rationally and the broadcasters are the actual "I-want-my-MTV" party in this transaction.
Like you say, just because we can (have satellite TV by selling
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2)
And you would not be doing anything wrong. What you are trying to express here and what is leading to all these cretinous "stealing of airwaves" charges by the conmen in charge of these "industr
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2)
I am an information theorist, and I have to disagree with this statement.
Think about binary signals. The number of binary signals of length n is 2^n. Of those signals, the number that are valid video sequences, in any format, is relatively tiny.
So take the set of all valid binary sequences that are (for example) valid MPEG files. The number of those files that look like something (i.e., that don't look l
Indeed... commercial radio.... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's my take on it.
Story, long time ago when cable first started, you didn't even need a box, just the cable. I moved into an aprtment that had a coax hanging out of the wall. Now I had a TV, and normal rabbit ears, but the reception sucked, and I was not able to get a normal antenna, as I didn't own this apartment. I had not purchased the cable networks offerings, but I DID feel it was my choice to screw that coax on and see if the longer wire that went out the wall and up the wall and "over yonder" some place might somehow improve my over the air reception, as it was the closest thing to having an outdoor aerial. Much to my surprise, I got cable feed, and it WASN'T connected, but it ran parallel to a connected cable. I guess induction did it somehow. Now, I would NOT have physcially screwed that together to the for-pay feed, or climbed the pole and hooked myself or anything of that sort, to me, that was and is illegal. But I saw no illegalities in receiving the signal. I rented the apartment, there was the wire, it worked, no physical connection, I did nothing to get the reception, it just "was there".. Eventually the cable company came and moved all the wires and I lost feed,so be it, so I went back to fuzzy rabbit ears.
There's the difference. There's physcially hijacking someone's property, then there's recieving a broadcast that is transmitted "at random" down from the sky, using a granted monopoly piece of the spectrum that is part mine anyway. They are not some sort of tight aiming it to individual people, they broadcast it out in a WIDE spread that hits everyone basiclaly under a huge area. It's as random as their altitude can get in the "down" direction.
Basically, I am tired of the government saying it can just take MY property and sell it, then saying it's OK for this private company to sell me my property back. I fully realise it's expensive to run a satellite and launch it and etc, but, we already figured out that advertising is "enough" to make incredible profits for broadcasters, I have no idea, but the sum totality of over the air broadcasting profits since the beginning of the radio age has to be into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
It didn't have commercials -- it was a commercial (Score:3, Informative)
We didn't have widespead broadcast radio until after World War One, as the US government has outlawed private use during the war [earlyradiohistory.us]. Radio came back after the war [earlyradiohistory.us], but it took some time before we had the birth of RCA [earlyradiohistory.us], and a little while later before other companies figured out how to make a profit off of radio [earlyradiohistory.us].
So
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2)
Broadcast televison in the U.S. began as urban-suburban commercial monopolies. You needed an insane amout of cash to launch a station but once up and running you had a license to coin money. The most you had to fear was one or two competitors within seventy-five miles. The good times ended with cable and sattelite. Now even the broadcast
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:4, Insightful)
Definitions aren't imaginary either (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Definitions aren't imaginary either (Score:2)
Re:Definitions aren't imaginary either (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:5, Insightful)
You can use the same stupid argument to justify any sort of espionage or hacking. Do you also think hacking someone's wlan from their parking lot is OK, since they broadcast intentionally to the parking lot and you are there.
What, do you think that the U.S. doesn't intercept (or try to intercept) foreign governments' transmissions, because that would be theft? Or that they don't try to do the same to the US (and each other)?
Hacking, is different, because it's active (you're sending instructions, not passively monitoring transmissions). But if someone is stupid enough to send valuable data unencrypted over a wireless link, sure, they should expect that it might be monitored. The same way two people talking loudly in public should expect that others can hear them.
If a pervert spies on a lady undressing who forgot to close her window is the pervert justified in taking advantage in your opinion.
If she's doing this in public and charging some audience members, I wouldn't expect the police to make others who want to see it pay as well.
Right now the biggest problem in the world is your stupid posts, at least to me.
You must live in that Walgreen's "Perfect" world, right? Where countries don't spy on one another and the biggest problem is someone's opinion on the Internet?
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:4, Interesting)
You do realize that the term "Piracy" has been used as a synonym for "Copyright Infringement" since at least the year 1828, don't you?
It's not like someone just got up in the morning and decided "Hey, I think I'm going to come up with emotionally charged language today... and boy do I feel like a salty sea-dog!".
Piracy has meant taking someone else's intellectual property without permission for a very long time - nearly 200 years. Get used to the phrase.
Webster's 1828 dictionary entry on "Piracy" [65.66.134.201]
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2, Insightful)
>Much to IP pirates' dismay, just like "piracy" and a million other words in English, "theft" has acquired a new definition thanks to usage. Copyright violation is Theft
Too bad that it's not copyright violation. How, you ask? Simple. Imagine a company that buys water from the local city, purifie
An ole quote .... (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you draw a cup of water from the sea, it is yours, if you pour it back it belongs to the commons. All creative works are drawn from the sea of knowledge. Kept to yourself they are yours, but once exposed are the commons."
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2, Informative)
then it legal for anyone to netstumble/kismet on to it, and basically
steal all of your bandwidth
all your bandwidth are belong to us
Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, they work at the DirecTV NOC. They steal once quiet airwaves and fill them with unwanted trash and beam them at my once quiet home without my permission.
There's theives all over if you choose to define the word incorrectly.
Calling it theft is kind of a stretch.... (Score:2)
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:5, Insightful)
What we need in this country is a higher penality for filing a lawsuit that is eventually lost.
Assumiming you're in the US, I agree that it sounds like something needs to be done, but is this it?
Doesn't this make it an even greater risk for someone without deep pockets to take someone to court?
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, familiar with that, but I'm not sure it helps. Consider...
EvilCorp does something bad to you. You file a suit against them. They hire a high-priced legal firm - they might even have some $300/hr lawyer on staff. Now you know that if you pursue the suit and lose you're going to be paying a fortune you cannot afford.
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:2)
Wouldn't harm genuine litigators, would scare the crap out of people like SCO.
Also make sure you fine the lawyers the same ammount as the defendant to stop them pushing stupid fucking shit through the courts without any regard for ethics.
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:2)
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:2)
Yeah, God forbid they have a $300/hr lawyer. Got news for ya, thats about mid range. A high-priced legal firm's lawyers are going to cost a LOT more than that.
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:2)
Otherwise, let the system work the way it does now.
LK
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:2)
In the case of trials, companies always hire outside counsel. Just like corporate lawyers
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:2)
Corporations have teams of lawyers working for them on a full-time basis. They'll just say that they're "legal costs" were next to nothing, since their lawyers are salaried employees who were going to get payed anyway.
Hell, I imagine ALL lawyers would do something similar if a "loser pays" law was put into effect. They'd just find some loophole to change the definition of a "legal fee", and we'd be back to square one.
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. If the lawyers are working and thus spending time in one case, they have less time to spend on another case. Therefore the company needs to hire/keep more lawyers, incurring legal costs.
Suppose the lawyer gets paid a flat rate of N dollars per month. Suppose that the case starts in
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:3, Interesting)
No, make it optional, in part or in full. We have that here in Norway, and it works very well. If you file a baseless lawsuit, you get slapped with the court costs. If they stall with volumious defense and appeals, you may get both the win and your court costs covered. And if either side rack up too unreasonable
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:2)
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:2)
What I'm getting at here should
How about paying and pirating? (Score:2)
using the cards and receiving in an unauthorized fashion the "major networks" (because due to the waiver system there is no other way to get them) and paying DirecTV the typical fee for network feeds.
Canadians using the cards to receive all the US channels that are censored off the Canadian channel list, and also paying for these by putting extra money in the bill.
Re:How about paying and pirating? (Score:5, Interesting)
They know this is going on. They've done nothing to stop it because they get sales they otherwise wouldn't have gotten, and it's really the content suppliers who are losing out of money they'd otherwise be entitled to.
How are content suppliers losing? (Score:2)
Re:How are content suppliers losing? (Score:2)
The much more common situation stateside is when a viewer in Texas wants to see Boston Red Sox games all season. Th
Re:How are content suppliers losing? (Score:2)
Re:How about paying and pirating? (Score:5, Informative)
It wouldn't be possible for them to verify it. Are they supposed to send someone out to the address of EVERY customer every time someone reports a change of service address?
When I worked for Echostar I used to hint to people to do this without actually saying it.
For example, the rules for network qualification are based upon 50 year old maps. They don't take into consideration things like new buildings that can block signal in urban areas or new powerlines that interfere with broadcast signals.
So someone would call in and want to order network programming and their address wouldn't qualify, I'd apologize to them and tell them that I couldn't do it. Often I'd hear things like "My brother lives 3 blocks away and he can get these." I'd check the brother's address and he in fact did qualify for networks. I'd then tell the customer "Yes sir, that address does qualify for networks. If your service address were in that area, you'd be able to get these too." The smart people would pick up on the inflection in my voice and ask if they could have separate service and billing addresses. The obvious answer is Yes they could. They would then proceed to give me a service address that was the same as the "brother's" address and add an "A" or "1/2" to the house number. Boom, they'd qualify for networks. My company was blameless because we can't be held responsible if someone lies to us about their address. And I got the credit for another upsell.
Echostar has made it harder for people to do this though. They've switched most of their local programming to their "spot beam" satellites. 3 years ago, all of their local networks were broadcast all over the continental US. The only thing that prevented you from getting Pittsburgh's local channels while you were in Las Vegas was the setting on Echostar's computer system. In 2002 they started spotbeaming their locals so for example the Pittsburgh local channels could only be received while IN the Pittsburgh area. If you had a mobile home and you drove from Pittsburgh to Washington DC you can't pick up the signal for Pittsburgh locals anymore. They didn't do this just to comply with SHVIA regulations. They did it so they could pack more channels into the part of the spectrum that they were granted. By restricting the signals in this way, they made it possible to spotbeam the channels for 5 cities in the portion of the spectrum that was originally taken up by 1 city's local channels.
They've done nothing to stop it because they get sales they otherwise wouldn't have gotten, and it's really the content suppliers who are losing out of money they'd otherwise be entitled to.
Local content providers don't lose out on anything. Most of the people who do this are living in the "shadow" of some structure that is preventing them from picking up broadcast signals anyway. If you can't watch a channel, you can't see the commercials. The local channel never had you in the first place, they aren't losing anything when you get the channels from another city. Cable companies lobbied congress HARD to get those rules into place. It was about forcing the hand of consumers, and protecting their business model.
LK
Re:How about paying and pirating? (Score:2, Interesting)
Many people DO NOT and WILL NOT connect their receivers to telephone lines.
I'm sure that some will respond with "Well then tough shit for those people, don't let them use the service". To which I reply that it's not in any business's best interests to alienate their customers. If you treat all of your customers like thi
Re:How about paying and pirating? (Score:2)
It, however, is also not in any business's best interests to alienate their suppliers either. It's the sports leagues and broadcast networks who insist that networks aimed at limited geographic areas must stay in those limited areas. DirecTV's answer to quell those fears is their phone system.
If DirecTV is
Re:How about paying and pirating? (Score:2)
Uhm... guess what, not having a phone line connected to your Dish Network equipment exposes you to the exact same risk.
Re:How about paying and pirating? (Score:2)
Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:2)
Sony V Scimeca (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, the notion that just because something is connected with litigation it should be immune to anti-racketeering laws is rediculous, the threat of being bankrupted by an legal battle can be at least as coercive as the threat of having your legs broken with a baseball bat, so why should one be legal, and the other not?
Racketeering? Get real! (Score:3)
Because litigation is the government approved method of coercion. Threatening someone with physical violence (at least, when not applied by the government as when the death penalty is
Re:Racketeering? Get real! (Score:2)
Re:Sony V Scimeca (Score:2, Flamebait)
Because many lawmakers are lawyers and don't like to slap even dirty lawyers hands.
Coerce how? (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems the coercian involves people preferring to settle than rather than pay the costs for defending themselves. From an article linked to from the above:
At that point, the settlement price tag jumps to $10,000 -- still less than the typical cost of paying a lawyer to go to trial against a corporate powerhouse in federal court.
Is it now actually the case that in the US the law is too expensive for people to use? This is how it appears from the stories I read on
Re:Coerce how? (Score:4, Funny)
It's not "too expensive." It's just "expensive." You can always get a lawyer--quite literally, if you can't afford one, you can get one. Even in civil suits. In each case, talk to the presiding judge and say "I'm poor, I need help."
That said--any passing student of game theory can appreciate why it would be a very bad idea to insinuate us from the cost of doing justice. If you take $500 from me and don't do what I paid you for, I don't want to spend more than $500 getting it back.
Re:Coerce how? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me you still think justice will be served with a public defender
Re:Coerce how? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Coerce how? (Score:2)
I think the same should apply for civil lawsuits. Did someone do something to make you mad? Then you have to sue them in the county where that occurred. This would, I know, hit corps especially hard, sin
Re:Coerce how? (Score:3, Insightful)
How could I possibly be stealing satellite signal when it's broadcasted to my home whether I want it or not ?
If a newspaper company would mass-mail their newspaper to everyone in an area, and I wasn't a subscriber, would I be a thief if I read it ? It did came in from my ma
Re:Coerce how? (Score:2)
While I can certainly agree that it is broadcast, I think th similarities between cable and satelite are deeper than your sibling poster thinks (of course I could be wrong--it happens).
First, satelite does go to great lengths to establish a physical infrastructure. Just because there aren't wires to your home doesn't mean that they haven't spent a lot of money trying to make a service (whic
Re:Coerce how? (Score:2)
After consulting a lawyer I sent them a VERY RUDE letter and even dared them to sue me or do anything in court as I was going to counter sue for 10X whatever they were asking plus damages...
I heard no response cince. but if they try anything I will be taking them for a HUGE amount of money and bad publicity as I will make it very publi
Re:Coerce how? (Score:2)
Even if they didn't manage to win against you, all they need to do is show the document "If you sue me, I will sue you for 10X!" and your goose is cooked. It's likely the judge will just say "Sir, you can't sue someone just because they sue you." and throw it out. Even if it didn't come to that, simply showing the court your letter would demonstra
Re:Coerce how? (Score:2)
Walmart has been breaking the bank on Georgia's medicare system for almost 10 years. We only hear a week before it bankrupts that Walmart was the biggest contributor to it's demise. Did anything change? Nope. Will it? Nope. Big business controls the media treadmill to a great extent. Especially publically held companies where suits in said media company own a l
Re:Coerce how? (Score:2)
Re:Coerce how? (Score:2)
Civil cases are to a perponderance of the evidence, meaning which ever side has slightly more evidence for their case than
Alot of them are goign to switch companies (Score:5, Interesting)
The canadian sattelite company Expressvue, used to go to peoples houses and offer them money for their "grey dishes" they then would overcharge them for their inferior service..
Expressvue ended up selling all of the "Liberated" units to dealers in Toronto. Damn hyprocrits.
Some of the actions taken by these sattelite companies to curtail pirating is worse than pirating itself.
Too bad for him (Score:5, Funny)
If only he hadn't blown the whistle, he could have had attractive career opportunities at the RIAA.
It's an open standard, silly. (Score:5, Interesting)
See, this is the slippery slope. In court, it's okay to present evidence that somebody purchased something as proof that the person used that item. However the ISO 7816 Smart Card Standard is more or less "dual-use" equipment. It's an ISO standard, afterall, so it's used in other applications like credit cards, security systems, and ID systems.
That's DirecTV's mistake. They can't quite get courts to accept their claim that the only use of Smart Card equipment is to emulate their cards. There are other uses, so you can't presume that without another piece of proof. Since DirecTV doesn't have that other piece, the lawsuit is over and they lose.
Sure, a majority of people who suddenly got interested in ISO 7816 were people who wanted to hack DirecTV... but how is a court to know whether it has a member of that majority, or the minority who had legit other uses in front of it? Without additional proof, the presumption that it was a legit use goes uncontested, and the court rules for the defense...
Re:It's an open standard, silly. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I submit proof that you purchased a pencil and some paper at a store moments before a nearby bank was robbed, should they get the money that was stolen from the bank back from you? Afterall, you had the capability to write the note...
A hacked card is proof of theft. A blank card is not.
Re:It's an open standard, silly. (Score:2)
Re:It's an open standard, silly. (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats right- you would be just like me. I've already spent $5000+ and I'm just getting started with discovery. The chance that I'll lose the case is nil, the chance that I'll get my court costs back- also nil.
This is the reason that settling for 3500 before you're sued is attractive.
For the slow:
3500 no trial, no public records
-or -
15k+ trial with me winning, p[lus a small sense of satisfaction
We've gone beyond the limits of robbery analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
If only this analogy applied. It surely doesn't when these "tools" are being used in one's own home! To make than theft/tools analogy more apt: it is like as if the banks kept dropping safes onto your front lawn. They don't have to this, but they do, without your permission. One day, you decide to open one of them.
However, the vast majority of these people WERE buying the stuff to steal DirecTV
None of them were, as no theft was involved. They were making use of signals given to them by DirecTV when they lobbed to signals into their property.
Re:It's an open standard, silly. (Score:3, Insightful)
You may be factually correct that people are using these devices most often for copyright infringement, but the assertion they must be guilty because they settled is dead-wrong.
Individual people and, indeed also, corporations will often settle because the legal costs of fighting a cause in court are too high. Examples of this are so prevalent that it's quite telling to see this claim still trumpeted as proof of guilt by some people.
Re:It's an open standard, silly. (Score:2)
no, it requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Ironically, "beyond a shadow of a doubt" is exactly the phrase the judge in the case i was recently a juror on used as an example of what is NOT required.
Re:It's an open standard, silly. (Score:4, Insightful)
A Good Step (Score:5, Insightful)
Constructive dismissal (Score:5, Interesting)
Mind you, it isn't illegal to accuse people of doing something illegal or trespassing if you have suspicion that they indeed were. I'm really curious as to where the limits to the "use" of the law meet the "availability" of it.
When Big Business can win by costing too much to litigate against, you are deprived of the fundamental rule of law, by being unable to meet legal remedy.
Re:Constructive dismissal (Score:2, Interesting)
Welcome to America, the land where your rights are tied to size of your bank account.
No way to prove anything (Score:5, Interesting)
Again, in all fairness to Directv, i dont think they have any real goals in eliminating legitimate techie uses of smart card stuff, but they couldn't care less about eliminating it if did get rid of all piracy. But they'll never get rid of it.
"Piratability" of the satellite is its main selling point. At Future Shop (where i believe the teenagers there make a commission) sold my father on Bell over Starchoice on the grounds that Bell gives you everything minus PPV for 6 months, and then you just find a friend at work or something who does satellite cards and get it all free. A girl my father didn't even know, a representative for the store sold stuff based on piracy.
I don't think star choice would be dying in canada like it is now if it could be pirated as easily as bell. Its completely unhackable, or let me say not even worth the trouble when bell is so easy.
Directv has interests in money. There is no money in eliminating piracy - its suicide - all new subscribers and even most directv folks will go to dish for the free wrestling. Directv has an interest in money, and extorting it from anyone is probably the most profitable way of going about it. If this guy didn't realize it, he's a moron. And if he honestly believes directv won't keep this held up in court as long as possible, he is also a moron.
*anonymous coward steps down from podium*
The conspiracy theorist.. (Score:2)
The current recievers are a joke to crack, although I que
Re:The conspiracy theorist.. (Score:2)
Specifically, it's not worth my time to maintain a cracked reciever, install digital locks, blah blah blah.
And I'm not a damn American. ExpressVu is a Canadian service. I won't make assumptions about -your- nationality.
My Advice: (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure it is their livelihood, and I bet it feels bad for them when someone gets something from them for free... it's one of the risks they took when they started their business dealing with an unlimited "resource" like microwaves (I think that's what those satalites use right?). If they want to fix the problem- make better hardware, better software.
Sometimes it's better for a company to spend a little more at the beginning in order to avoid the consequences down the road of being cheap .
Re:My Advice: (Score:2)
Socialism works better when you deal with unlimited resources and I think it would make more sense for the government to subsidize and distribute satellite signals for free-- let the business be based on ad revenue and on the sale of decoding boxes-- and if someone wants to make the
If they would SELL the services in the first place (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If they would SELL the services in the first pl (Score:2)
Funny, I've had local channels via DirecTV's satellite service for about a year now, and it looks like they have more packages with local broadcasting than without.
http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/packages/Landing.ds p [directv.com]
The local affiliates have a policy of "we don't grant
It's not the local I want; it's the networks (Score:2)
I've never wanted the local channels. I've wanted the network feeds for the major networks that you can get with the waivers. The so-called "local" channels are too distant to bother to broadcast a strong television signal, but they do have blanket "no-waiver" policies.
That's the reason I've had cable for years: the so-called "local" stations
Let freedom ring (Score:3, Insightful)
I urge everyone, download DirecTV programs to your hard drive, convert to mpegs using transcode, [uni-goettingen.de]and distribute on gnutella [gnutelliums.com].
That'll learn them.
Let the world change. Out with old.
It is on their property.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, in the case of cable piracy, you're exploiting a service which you're paying for the priveledge of. In other words, you wouldn't have cable if someone hand't hooked it up and ran wires.
It's the same with stealing electricty. It's not just laying around on your property waiting to be used... You have to pay for the priveledge of having electricty, just like you have to continue to pay in order to use it.
But with satellite it's different. They're shooting their signal across my land, so to my twisted way of thinking, there's not a lot of difference between me putting up an antenna to catch on-air broadcast feeds (ie, NBC, ABC, etc), and me buying a receivier and antenna to receive the satellite waves that are there for the taking.
I know there's a lot more to it from the legal point of view as well as from the ethical standpoint, but to me it's hard to really call someone who just buys the equipment and sets it up in their own home a criminal. They didn't run a line to illegally tap into some companies pay-for-use system. They didn't splice into someone elses services.
They simply installed the neccesary equipment to receive what's already on their property.
In one sense, I have to say that I can't really see why the satellite companies don't just sell the equipment and then make their money in premium services and advertising (as tv networks have been doing for some time now, with amazing success!). Give the standard programming away, and charge those who want more (this could probably be acconplished by encrypting certain streams, and sending out the free ones as unencrypted or something. I'm not satellite techie, but it seems fairly straight-forward).
In other words, give the razors away, and sell razor blades.
Of course the capitalist side of me says "That's no way to run a business", and thinks of all the backend licensing and copyright work that would be involved in order to make something like this happen.
But still... I have a hard labelling those who choose to freely receive what's already being broadcast to them as criminals. The day there's no more rape or murder in the world, that's the day I'll start considering satellite piracy a real crime.
Not trying to troll... Just thinking out loud...
Re:It is on their property.... (Score:3, Informative)
This is how it works in Europe.
Unfortunately, in North America, things are generally screwed up so badly between laws and moronic satellite companies that everyone is screwed.
For example, Canadians have been barred for a lifetime from paying a cen
Or, to turn it around... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why doesn't DirecTV owe me damages? They are irradiating my property with microwave radiation without my consent.
I'm sorry, but this is a classic case of IIA (Idiots In Action). These guys are like the kid who hits his baseball through your window and then calls the police claiming you stole his baseball. And "of course" you're guilty - you're in possession of "stolen property". But who put it there?
The reason why I'm unsympathetic is because DirecTV set themselves up for piracy - there's no physical control over the infrastructure, and the signal is available everywhere. Did they really believe that their signal wasn't going to get hacked? The military learned a long time ago that when it comes to broadcast commo, key control is of the utmost importance. How DirecTV thought they could maintain a secure distro channel when they passed out keys to the general public remains a mystery.
New Job Offer (Score:5, Funny)
I understand that SCO has just made him a job offer.
Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
You know why? Because it's accurate.
Human beings are not as complicated as they might wish themselves to be. Gatherings of men in one context are going to be just like gatherings of men in another. It always seems to end up badly whenever we allow power to go to the hands of a few. Over and over and over and over again.
It's what human beings turn into whenever they get the opportunity. Hence the Constitution, and all the other lessons history has forgotten. We're just doing it all over again, just more thoroughly with the aid of technology. What does the future have in store for us? Maybe we can all see it in our peripheral thoughts in a hazy kind of way. THat something just isn't right. Pass the Zoloft.
"Everything is permissible..." (the ethics of /.) (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet, here, the highest modded comments on DirecTV stories are generally those that include some kind of variation of, "They're putting the airwaves in my backyard, I just happen to be catching them in my satellite dish!" Or, "It's not technically illegal to just capture it from the airwaves!" I think it's safe to say, this being slashdot, that some of these people are software engineers or the like. I wonder if these software engineers feel the same way about people in foreign countries who break no laws in their own countries but still pirate software.
Just because you can do something, even if it is not illegal, doesn't mean you should. I know this is unpopular to say, but you're still receiving something that the producers intended to receive compensation for. They are doing something, even if that is just retransmitting. Whereas FM radio and local stations do not expect compensation, DirecTV does, so the analogy that it's "in the air" doesn't really make sense ethically. If you think it's too much to pay for, patronize someone else or don't watch the TV. Just because DirecTV is a big company, or it's easy to take advantage of a service they're providing, doesn't mean it's right. Saying they're a big company and citing their scrupulous tactics is merely a justification, an excuse. It doesn't make stealing right. It might be cool to show off to your friends, it might even be legal, but receiving something you didn't pay for when the party providing the service fully expects compensation is stealing. I know DirecTV does some very questionable things, but like for like doesn't accomplish anything. Patronizing a competitor who does not utilize those tactics is ultimately far more effective than merely stealing service.