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Satellite Hackers Charged Under DMCA
RexHavoc writes "'Invoking the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal grand jury has indicted six people on charges of developing software and hardware designed to hack into paid TV satellite transmissions.' My guess is that for those who haven't already plead guilty, they will have a tough time proving that they had good intentions, unlike Dmitry Sklyarov's e-books case."
looks like a legitimate case. the DMCA does enforce some issues that do need to be enforced. I agree that these people were in the wrong...but on the whole I still think the DMCA needs some serious re-writing.
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
If you give out some kinds of information that's treason. Other kinds of information may get you in civil court for violation of intellectual property agreements. Giving out false information can be fraud. This is not such a novel concept.
Frankly this is the only application of the DMCA that I've seen to date that I think is reasonable. You've got people creating devices to decrypt copyrighted material that people could legitimately pay for and play in any manner they wanted to. I've got DirecTV, and I can certainly record the shows, and excerpt them for commentary, etc. There's no reason that you need to decrypt these signals, save for not having to pay for them.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
1. Should it be illegal to tell someone how to do something?
NO
2. Should it be illegal to actually do said 'thing'.
Yes, so long as said thing violates what the citizens want to be wrong.
In the end, I don't want to be breaking the law by simply knowing something, and sharing that knowledge. That's the thing the DMCA does that scares me.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
While I don't think it's a terrible thing to create software and hardware to illegally use satellite TV, I do think that it should be against the law to actually use them.
It's a good thing that we don't have a DMCA-style piece of legislation for weapons, or any person who has PVC pipes, potatos and hairspray in their house could be brought up on charges.
If we assume people are criminals because they have the tools to commit a crime, everyone with hands should be locked up to provent potential fist-fights. Every person over 21 should be held for potential public drunkeness. Every eighteen-year-old in the US should be arrested for the possibilty of providing cigarettes to minors. And every car owner should be thrown in jail for possible vehicular manslaughter.
Not that I'm approving of breaking the law. But the DMCA is the same mentality as suing McDonald's for dropping coffee in your lap. It's saying that you aren't capable of not doing these things without intervention; hat anyone would drop coffee in their lap if there was no label; that anyone would steal satellite services if they knew how; that anyone with a gun will surely commit murder.
If we have become so weak as a people to no longer be able to stop ourselves from any activities, then we need more legislation than the DMCA. But, as long as we are capable of rational thought, we should be held accountable for our actions, not our thoughts.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Whether or not the intentions of the authors were good or not makes no difference. It should ALWAYS be up to the end user to exercise good judgment in usage of information. In Kenpo, I was taught how to break bones and even kill people. I have yet to break anyone's bones, other than my own, nor have I killed anyone. Should I be punished for knowing these things? Should my teacher be punished for teaching me? No. If I chose to use my knowledge unfairly, should my teacher be punished for my irresponsibility?
The DMCA is the modern day non-racial equivalent of the Jim Crow laws. If you can keep "them" uneducated you can keep "them" under control.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Why is it legal for me to have a cable tv descrambler and watch a cable off of a wire (which the cable company can claim ownership of) but not for me to decrypt a satalite signal from the airwaves which the statalite company cannot legimately claim ownership of?
Under current law, it seems that if someone throws a brick through my window and I pick it up, I am guilty of stealing a brick.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -- Homer Simpson
The DMCA. Like it or not, it's the law.
Ability does not imply intent. All people who have knifes, aren't cooks. Some are serial killers :)
You may remember the extensive 'fair use' discussions that have gone on here and elsewhere around the 'net. The point of fair use says that it is reasonable to use copyrighted material for brief excerpts, private use, and so on.
Let's pretend that we treat knives as a 'fair use' item. Knives can be used for substantial non-infringing/illegal uses, like chopping tomatoes, or opening boxes. When used in a manner that harms someone, they are arrested for murder, and the weapon is taken in as evidence.
Okay, now we'll talk about a hacked satellite dish box. Such boxes do NOT have substantial non-infringing uses. Their only viable use is to steal copyrighted presentation of satellite service. Even without the DMCA, you are guilty of contributory copyright infringement...and the illegal box should be taken in as evidence.
The DMCA causes problems when invoked where 'fair use' may be being used, such as in the Adobe E-Book case, where a piece of software that could be used to steal e-books could also be used to read a purchased book to a blind man, even if the e-book says 'no'.
Although I object to the DMCA, whether the DMCA or standard copyright law is invoked to arrest these people is irrelevant. If they've done what's claimed, they're guilty of standard copyright infringement and should be punished. This court case will not determine anything about the future of the DMCA or its paradoxes. It just happened to be used here.
Next time we get another Skylarov type case and it comes back not guilty, then there's more meat to go on.
But to summarize, a knife analogy is not reasonable here. If you're hacking satellite boxes that can theoretically receive signals you didn't pay for, you're going to have to do a lot of convincing to make 12 jurors believe you did it because you were interested in how the box worked and wanted to (legally) reverse engineer it.
If you disagree with that, then you're asking for a more broad right; that of engineers/geeks/technical people to do whatever they choose with technology for their own purposes. If a jury finds that whatever that technology is is primarily for an illegal act, you're going to get burned, no matter what you say.
It's just a simplification, and a jury that comes to the conclusion that an illegal satellite box has never been used for anything but to steal television will deliver a guilty verdict more often than not.