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DirecTV Sues Anyone Who Bought Smartcard Reader?
MImeKillEr writes "The Register is reporting that DirecTV is suing anyone known to have purchased a smartcard programmer, regardless of whether or not they're actually using the device to enable stealing their programming. They're sending out letters & when people call to clear up the confusion, DirecTV is demanding a $3500 settlement as well as the programming device. They've filed 9000 federal lawsuits against alleged pirates thus far. They're obtaining lists of who purchased the devices during raids against the sites that offer them for sale."
Guess I better not call them.
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SmartCard readers? They are suing the DoD?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
This sounds like one of those cases where paying cash for 'grey' goods is a smart move. Unless they have some other means of tracking smartcard owners? Not that I have, want or need a smartcard reader or DirecTV for that matter (there is little enough on telly to warrant much more than basic cable for the occassional sporting event). It'll be interesting to watch who pays up, who fights it in court and just whether any of this activity will dampen the desire for smartcard readers. Cheers, Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I assume you use a knife for eating your dinner. Since we all know a knife can be used for stabing people you are guilty of stabing people wheither you ever stabed anyone or not! Report to your nearest jail! You are guilty of murder!
-- Laura
"Presumed innocent until proven guilty"? Or did that die along with "Racial profiling is bad" 20 months ago?
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
Of course it can wait. No Senators get paid off when a murderer goes to jail. But if a company makes money, then everyone* profits!
*Your definition of everyone may vary from that of the US Senate and Large Corporations
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The sites that sold the devices advertised them as signal theft devices. That is why the sites got busted in the first place.
Would an intelligent consumer buy white flour from a cocaine dealer? I think not.
That's like making it illegal to buy a knife because someone killed another person with it.
No, I think it's more like suing everyone who's ever bought a knife because somebody got stabbed.
This works because lawyers are expensive. To the average person, the legal fees required to fight it are greater than the settlement.
So, in effect, what DirecTV is saying is "Give us $3500 or we will sue you." It doesn't matter if they have a case or not. They get $3500 or you pay more in legal fees.
Actually, this is more like Tony Soprano's business model than anything.
Another illustration that the court system and the justice system are not always synonymous. In situations like this, whoever can afford more litigation costs wins. The only people who are going to challenge this sort of legal bullying are a few fanatics who will fight on principle, and the few who use smartcard programmers for some legitimate business purpose and can justify the expense. The rest will fold up and hand them over.
...it appears that abuse and extortion are what our legal system is all about. Its not about justice, its about who has the deeper pockets.
"Send lawyers, guns and money..."
--rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
Isn't it "nice" to be living in the US while seeing a steadily increasing move towards arresting/detaining/suing people who "might" commit a crime, instead of actually waiting until they commit it?
And you don't even have to threaten to do so anymore. All you need to do is have the ethnicity/equipment/political affiliation that labels you as someone who "could" commit a crime.
I have an MP3 player at home and MP3's on my PC, so I *MUST* be downloading copyrighted music.
I have a CD Burner in my laptop, so I *MUST* be copying software.
I am not a Republican, so I *MUST* be engaging in sedicious activity.
And alot of people/politicians/companies seem to be jumping on the through crime/preventive detention/suing before the fact bandwagon these days.
Scary indeed.
I don't care if things are 'advertised' as being illegal. If I buy a crowbar because someone says it can be used to break windows and steal cars, and I use it to tear down a wall I don't want in my house, is that illegal? Perhaps a used crowbar is more in my price range, or that crowbar costs less than one down at the hardware store. It doesn't matter how it's advertised, it matters how I use it. Note: I didn't say "how I intend to use it".
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Clearly these suits are not designed to go to court; they are designed to get people to turn themselves in and get these devices off the street. US$3500 is too cheap for anybody who really is guilty by intent to take it to court. And the "guilty" probably are the majority of the people who bought from those sites.
Of course the problem is those who are innocent. Courts have shown in the past that if you buy a device like this with the intent to perform a crime, then you are guilty even if you didn't carry through on that crime. And as the sites advertised as such, showing that was your intent is much easier.
However there are very legitimate uses for these devices, just as the article shows, and innocent people will get caught up in this. Just because the site may advertise this device as being useful for cracking DirecTV, I may very well buy it for other purposes if the price was cheap. Think about someone selling hardened-steel axes for $5.00 with the advert "You can chop down your neighbor's door with this!"...but at $5.00 I would probably buy one to cut my firewood. If it's not inherently an illegal device (which smartcard programmers are not) and my intended use was not illegal then I did nothing wrong. My intented use doesn't have to match that of the advertiser.
Until this point I've actually respected DirecTV's anti-piracy approach; mainly by counter-hacking and outsmarting the illegal crackers. But now they are going to snare a lot of innocent folks in an expensive legal trap, and setting a bad example for other corporations to try. The innocent should be able to beat this without too much effort, but it will sadly cost them a lot of money and time to prove their innocence.
Sosa "doesn't care" because he's a doctor and he'd lose a lot more than $3500 in the time it'd take him to fight this (and be unlikely to recover those costs even if he did win). He said it himself, he's got a family to look after. Now if it was me, I'd send them a letter saying "See you in court", because I have nothing to lose. Compared to Dr. Sosa, my time is virtually worthless. I couldn't afford a lawyer, but I'd be willing to bet a judge would see it my way if I prepared a clear presentation explaining what I'd been using the device for (assuming I wasn't a pirate that is!). DirecTV would have NO proof I was using it to steal their signal, after all (since I wasn't).
Call me naive, or what?
Freedom: "I won't!"
My gut feeling points at two major contributing factors in this timeframe: the Microsoft/Netscape case and the DMCA. Why these two? Firstly, as is clear to anyone who even walks into a Best Buy or other software retailer, Microsoft is not being punished for unethical business practices. This precedent of a slap on the wrist (at worst) for large corporations who misbehave has taken hold of the greedy upper management in these businesses. They are not afraid of the U.S. government because it's clear to them as long as G. W. Bush is in place with an all-republican congress, big business has nothing to worry about.
Which leads me to the second point - the DMCA. It's a wonderful little piece of legislation that content providers of copyrighted material have been able to use to blungent anyone who so much as think about how to get around copyprotection mechanisms.
Therefore:
1. Scare your customers $h1^less
2. ???
3. Profit!
Seems to be a plausable business model to these people.
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Stretch or not, Mercer admits that DirecTV has dismissed some cases after the defendant proved his or her innocence to the company's satisfaction.
I'm confused...Guilty until proven innocent?
A letter asserting that you have stolen sattelite tv because you own a smart card programmer potentially fits several of the items you list because:
1) Owning a smart card programmer absolutley does NOT mean that you stole a signal any more than owning a car is indisputable proof that you are a drunk driver, so the letters that have been sent to people do contain false statements.
2) Being accused of a felony IS damaging to a persons reputation.
It's this sort of thing makes me real glad I don't live in the USA.... These morons can't make a secure smartcard so are trying to screw money out of people instead of fixing it. I really hope enough people file criminal charges for extortion and a class action to give these bullies a serious kicking. The victims are really not helping anyone by rolling over to these bully-boy threats. I'm not familiar with the US legal system, but I don't see how it would cost $3500 to represent yourself in front of a judge, explain in plain English the legitimate uses for the reader and how this company is trying to extort money with no evidence - am I being really naive here....??? Wouldn't it be funny if a few people sent money to their Paypal link from stolen credit-card numbers cards so Paypal froze their account....! Whatever next - "you bought a computer, therefore you were programming smartcards and ripping us off..."
Hasn't anybody ever heard of a boycott before? Dump your TV and Satellite Dish. You'll be happier, and read more /.
To help balance the federal budget deficit and preemptively reduce highway accident rates, the Federal government today announced that all registered car owners will be sued in federal court today. The lawsuit requires all defendants to comply by immediately bringing their registered vehicles to a government run repair center and have a speed governor installed. Specifically, this lawsuit applies to all vehicles that have a speedometer designed to indicate speeds higher than the maximum allowed by law.
Ashcroft... "Of course someone who buys a car equipped with a speedometer that indicates speed ranges higher than the legal limits clearly intends to break those limits."
President Bush commented... "Well, if you break the law then you should be punished. I have never gotten a speeding ticket, and if I did then it would definitely be based on faulty intelligence - and I'm definitely aware of anything faulty at this point. In fact, if you're speeding, then you're - you're probably a terrorist. Its a good law."
If you have a legal use for such a product you shouldn't buy it from someone who is specifically advertising it as being illegal.
I don't care if things are 'advertised' as being illegal. If I buy a crowbar because someone says it can be used to break windows and steal cars, and I use it to tear down a wall I don't want in my house, is that illegal?
IANAL, which nobody seems to remember to mention anymore. 's pretty important; I could be blatantly misunderstanding something here, as it's clear that at least a quarter of the remainder of the discussion is.
This argument loses a lot of steam when you attempt to complete the metaphor. What legitimate purpose did these decoders serve? The argument might better be made using a device which is contextually generally for the Dark Side; a slim jim, electric lockpick, or tumbler breaking tools might be a better choice. The locksmith, the AAA guy, and the police officer have good reasons to have these things. The dude in the fake ninja getup in the industrial slums has a germane bit of explaining to do.
What I'm wondering is how DTV can sue for descramblers. Traditionally they've been legal, because once the end-user buys the device, it's theirs, and they may do with it as they please. Same as Mod Chips, flash cards for game platforms, VCRs / PVRs / tapedecks / DVD burners / CD burners, third party debuggers, etc. There's nothing wrong with it until you do something wrong with it.
Is the hardware leased? Is there some kind of end-user contract? Does one of the new laws (DMCA, SSSPCA, USPSKFC, whatever) change the way this is seen in court? Help me understand what they're actually accusing of, in specific, rather than topically.
I can very easily see the argument for a suit against the manufacturers of the item - priove black box reengineering, etc - but Compaq started a clone market with this sort of behavior. And besides, if Compaq *had* been in the wrong, since when would it be the user's fault for buying a device that at the time was legal?
Or, there's the TV Piracy suggestion. Two words: prove it. That's the only claim here that I understand, and it's not certain. You can't sue for maybe.
There are dozens of laws against using the legal system to cow the populace; more clueful slashdotters will bring them up (I've already seen barratry, extortion, and I'm expecting conspiracy or collusion or whatever they perenially accuse airlines of in price fixing soon...) It seems that, in the light that DirecTV has little actual wrongdoing in hand, there ought to be a class action or something similar in rebuttal.
Then again, apparently they've been overturned already, so I've obviously missed some serious detail. Guh?
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Slashdot has a signficant amount of technological saavy users. May I suggest those users boycot this company, I am willing to bet it will hurt them (the company) to some degree.
Red Hat is for people who hate Windows, FreeBSD is for people who love Unix.
www.putertech.net
The locksmith, the AAA guy, and the police officer have good reasons to have these things.
People have no business owning soldering irons, an electrical engineer has a good reason to own one, but anyone else caught with one has a germane bit of explaining to do.
I know how to pick locks; I never intend to use it for any crime. If I accidentally lock myself out of somewhere I'm allowed to be in, I'll save myself a pretty good chunk of money.
I know how to solder and repair electronics. The soldering iron can also be used for installing mod chips or building satellite card programmers.
Tools are tools. They don't have to have a compelling legitimate use to untrained people to be legal. Anything else is facist.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
No, YOU jackass. The limb you went off on broke. You don't know what you're talking about.
The products sold on those sites are quite superior to regular smart card programmers and are CHEAPER!
Your usual smart card writer suppliers know that most people buying these are buying them using their companies budget so they make the markup higher.
It makes sense (well did until DTV started this crap) to buy from those pirate websites.
Hell some DTV sites (advancedlearningsystems.com) sell actual professional smartcard programmers cheaper than the manufacturer. They buy in bulk and sell individually at cost for their members.
When it's Evil Corp vs. Poor Schmuck, Poor Schmuck is doomed as long as he fights against Evil Corp. But Evil Corp is still run by people and it doesn't take much research to figure out exactly who is sending out those letters. At some point, Poor Schmuck is going to take the matter directly to the guy who sent the letter and then it will be Extremely Pissed Off and Homicidal Schmuck vs. Scared Shitless Attorney.
These companies need to learn that they are destroying people's lives and the only way they're going to learn this lesson is when people start destroying theirs.
It's not that I'm advocating violence but what would you do if your entire life savings was about to be wiped out by a corp and you were completely innocent of any wrong doing and had no way to stop it?
Insightful????
If you are beaming your signals into my property, my house, my body, my kids, etc, I will damn well do what I please with them!
Lets say I pull over next to your house and park in a public street. I fire up my laptop and pick up your open wireless access point and I use your Internet connection because the signals from your access point bleed into my car (and maybe I will even do mean nasty things with your connection as well). Is this OK too? Sure you may not pay extra for me to leech your service, but is it right for me to even be on your private network at all?
I almost have a duty to intercept them and decode them and make sure they are not harmful in anyway.
What if you had used WEP and I cracked it and got onto your network, would this still be OK in your book? Say I rigged my cordless phone to use the base station in your house because the signals from your base station can reach into my car. Would it be OK for me to use your phone service simply because those signals pass into my car?
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
However it can only damage your reputation if it is public. The threatening letter is sent specifically to you by the party who is accusing you (or a duely authorized agent in their name) - it is not apublic declaration.
:)
Now, if they published these letters on their website, or released the names of all the people that they were accusing to the local paper, that would fit.
Basically...if I ring your doorbell and when you answer I tell you "I think you are a souless satan worshipping ballbag" thats nothing (well maybe harrassment or tresspassing if I don't leave when you tell me to).
but if I go to your neibors door and when he answers I tell him you are a soulless satan worshipping ballbag...thats slander.
If I take an ad out in the paper and tell the readershoip that you are a soulless satan worshipping ballbag... thats libel.
See?
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Yes, glitching is what makes DTV smart card programmers different. They also have a flashable amtel but some standard smart card readers have that too I believe.
People have no business owning soldering irons, an electrical engineer has a good reason to own one, but anyone else caught with one has a germane bit of explaining to do.
// Tools are tools. They don't have to have a compelling legitimate use to untrained people to be legal.
This flies in the face of the point I was trying to make. The reason a crowbar is a bad metaphor is that it's got many legitimate purposes. So does a soldering iron. You've just provided another terrible choice of metaphor to make; the statement was explicitly pointing out that things like this are useless to say. So, in short, thanks for the fodder; you're making my point for me.
I know how to pick locks; I never intend to use it for any crime. If I accidentally lock myself out of somewhere I'm allowed to be in, I'll save myself a pretty good chunk of money.
This strikes me as a watered down version of the sarcastic response gun control advocates make to the suggestion that the average citizen has a right to own an assault rifle. Car theft tools you do, admittedly, have a rare occasion to use legitimately. However, this doesn't dissolve the case for catching someone with them when they don't have keys for any cars in the area. You're not making sensible arguments.
This is akin to saying, after a fashion, "Of course I have the right to own a cannister of Sarin Gas. I have no intents of doing anything illegal with it. Any government which takes Sarin Gas away from me is fascist."
Bullshit.
Yes, there are grey areas. Car thievery tools like slim jims exist in them. So do lock picking tools. In my opinion, assault rifles do not. Neither do biowarefare agents.
In the meantime, you're still making my point for me. This is exactly what I was saying that DirecTV has no right to do. That said, I was pointing out that the person I had originally replied to had made the same fallacious statement as you have: if you don't intend to do ill with it, you may own it. This hasn't been true in any major society that I can name since pre-roman times. I mean, christ's sake, you can't even have some simple martial weapons, like nunchaku, which are important for spiritual practices for a good many people. What the hell are you doing that's not theft with a goddamn DirecTV-specific decoder box?
It's not grounds for DirecTV to sue. I already said that, even though you seem to have missed it. That doesn't mean that you're in the right, though. I will personally mail you one dollar if you can even think of one good use for these things that isn't stealing TV. (This offer isn't open to other people; I can think of a few. I just don't think he can. And his argument sucks.)
I know how to solder and repair electronics. The soldering iron can also be used for installing mod chips or building satellite card programmers.
Again, this was my original argument. You're not telling me anything new. Be sure to read the whole thing before you jump on it.
Anything else is facist.
You know, this is one of my pet peeves. People will use a word without having any clue what the hell it means, because they think they're getting some kind of point across. Granted, there are a lot of people out there who realize that what you mean is a state under stricture, but that's not what facism is. The problem is that when you jump on me, you think I'm doing the same things with my words. You don't know how to seperate connotation from denotation, and as a result you argue against what you expect me to be saying (what you figure I'm saying, what you'd like to argue against) rather than what I actually said.
In effect, you're doing nothing other than making noise, because you're arguing against smoke monkies in the dark. (This is my attempt to sound like someone that uses words at random. It didn't work very well. I'll work on that.)
"Lazy argument is bad argument."
StoneCypher is Full of BS
"There is no question that the items in question are pirate devices."
Yes there is. The device is used for legitimate purposes. If DirecTV wants to eliminate the doubt, they should use a proprietary technology or card design. They use an open standard that is in use in other industries and then wonder when people can get their hands on equipment to steal it? That is (somewhat) like using philips head screws to secure your home and then not expecting anyone to have a philips head screwdriver.
Lovely slashbot crying. Everyone is suddenly a legitimate smart card hacker and not a thief. Sure. Whatever.
There you are dead on.
Chuck
They are accusing 8700 people and settling for $3500 a piece, which rounds out to $30,450,000 if they get everybody to fold. So people get out of it, but some people end up paying more. Their business model is working. From the article:
...Hughes Electronics reported strong second quarter results, with $2.4 million in revenue, driven by DirecTV's subscriber growth.
Now consider this. If they only get half of the amount they are seeking, $15,225,000, that's still more than five times that quarters reported earnings of $2.4 million.
Just some food for squat.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
2) Being accused of a felony IS damaging to a persons reputation
surely it's not if the company doesn't tell anyone else who it is accusing? as you can't injusre someone's reputation by telling them something in private..
Either that, or Sosa HAS been using it to steal services, and that's why he doesn't want to fight.
Oh, crap. That's exactly what DirecTV wants us to think, isn't it? They'll assume (and convince us to assume) that everyone who settled is a thief. Armed with 'proof' that all these people stole their services, DirecTV now lobbies Congress for DMCA2 or SSSCA or FTCA (Fuck the Consumer Act, why beat around the bush now?) and gets it passed.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
"Sorry, I don't associate with greedy lawyer types... not that I'm worried about this case, but send me a few names/numbers in case I have a future need arise! :)"
Not all lawyers are pieces of shit, only about 90%. My dad's best friend is a lawyer who defends doctors in medical malpractice suits (doctors do make accidents during their lifetime that shouldn't cost them $2 billion.) My dad owns a business and every couple of weeks someone threatens to sue. Only about once a year do they go through with it but having a friend as a lawyer to write you up a nice letter can save thousands of dollars. When you run apartment complexes then they are worth their weight in gold.
Sosa "doesn't care" because he's a doctor and he'd lose a lot more than $3500 in the time it'd take him to fight this (and be unlikely to recover those costs even if he did win). He said it himself, he's got a family to look after.
And? His children are not going to starve because he has to cut back his hours temporarily to fight against a frivolous lawsuit. He IS a doctor, after all.
Dr. Sosa is symptomatic of the mindset that Money is more important than anything -- even Justice. Assuming he actually wasn't doing what DirecTV was accusing him of, his willingness to hand over his lunch money to the schoolyard bully sickens me.
There is no question that the items in question are pirate devices. The fact that a small percentage of buyers did use them some people use them for legit purposes does not change the fact that virtually all of the purchasers were stealing signals.
Now where have I heard this before?
Ah, lovely. I remember now. Do you enjoy your job as the RIAA's personal whipping boy/mouthpiece?
There is clear legal precedent (Grokster, Limewire, et al) for the idea that possible illegal use of a technology does not make the technology itself illegal. Is it comfortable under your rock?
It helps to know that no reputable lawyer will ever guarantee that they will win. So, the question is not "can you win" - it's "can you afford to lose".
There are two outcomes:
1) DirectTV loses, pays the costs, says to it's lawyers, "Bad show, guys", and moves on.
2) The individual loses, is now in the hole his fees, plus their fees (say $20,000 on an individual case) and mortgages his house. Wife and kids are at a minimum unhappy, and worst case they are homeless.
DirectTV can afford to lose, the individual can't, DIrectTV knows this, so it isn't exactly a level playing field. Level playing fields are not guaranteed - only access to the court system is.
Note also that the class action suit was not really based on the merits of DirectTVs case - they accused DirectTV of extortion.
Defending yourself against baseless lawsuits is very expensive and time-consuming. Those who were not stealing sattellite TV signals had their lives greatly disturbed. DirecTV suing a large group of people with no basis other than posession of a device that could possibly be used to steal signals is nothing but abuse of the legal system and I hope they get taken to task for such tactics.
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
Your point being? Oh, that's right, you didn't have one. Thanks for playing.
So, you feel the system is working if any company can bring suit against everyone who could have gotten free service?
Yes, I guess that makes sense. Think of the wonderful future in store for us. One where eveyone has a few days a year scheduled in court to prove they aren't breaking the law. And if you can't prove it, I guess it's just your bad luck.
Which is why it seems like the system is working here.
That is the type of attitude that bothers me. Since you love the system so much I hope they sue you. You can accrue the thousands upon thousands of dollars in lawyers fees it takes to prove you are innocent and have no need in paying the $3,500 fine.
But defending a case costs money, and critics of DirecTV's campaign say that people have been paying the $3,500 settlement, guilty or innocent, simply because they can't afford a lawyer.
Nice working system you support!
The company won't say how many cases it's dropped, but Zakarian and Apgood both say they've negotiated dismissals. In every case, though, the innocent defendant is left holding the bag for their attorney fees.
I am happy to know you are so supportive of this type of action!
I am happy to know you support large companies blindly suing everyone without investigative work.
I am happy to know you support large companies intentionally sending out letters that incurage people, who might have done nothing wrong, to pay a fine or pay hefty court costs to defend themselves!
I am happy to know you support the little guys getting squashed so that DirecTV can gain a few extra dollars.
I personally thing it is horrible and have set my sights on never using DirectTV but then again I actually care about those people who are trampled by DirectTV.
So the trick would be (if you get one of these letters) to ignore it and wait for them to file suit against you.
...?
The suit is in the public record, so then it's libel (assuming you really are innocent).
If enough people have the cojones to ignore the threats, then DirectTV will have to show it's cards or STFU.
Actually, it still comes back to barratry, I think. Like another poster said, this is no different than someone suing you for drunk driving because they have a record of you buying a car. The one doesn't imply the other. And, even if I were a drunk driver, they can't search me based on the fact that I bought a car.
Okay, the analogy is getting weak, but doesn't this all boil down to just legal intimidation
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
People have no business owning soldering irons, an electrical engineer has a good reason to own one, but anyone else caught with one has a germane bit of explaining to do.
...
This flies in the face of the point I was trying to make. The reason a crowbar is a bad metaphor is that it's got many legitimate purposes. So does a soldering iron.
What the hell are you doing that's not theft with a goddamn DirecTV-specific decoder box?
The thing is, smart cards have plenty of legitimate uses beyond DTV boxes, and DTV is using an industry standard smart card format. If they were using a proprietary format, and these smart card programmers had to be specifically designed for DTV smart cards, I would agree with you. Since they're using an industry standard format, however, it's really no different than going after everyone who owns a crowbar or a soldering iron.
This strikes me as a watered down version of the sarcastic response gun control advocates make to the suggestion that the average citizen has a right to own an assault rifle.
According to the Bill of Rights, and the intentions of those who wrote it, the average citizen DOES have the right to own an assault rifle, even if assault rifles aren't mentioned directly. The purpose of the Right to Bear Arms is not for hunting, or even to protect oneself from criminals; it is to protect oneself from an abusive or overbearing government.
I should probably mention that I'm not a member of the NRA, nor do I even own so much as a squirtgun, but I am a firm beleiver in the founding principles of this nation.
OT, but something you should think about.
I mean, christ's sake, you can't even have some simple martial weapons, like nunchaku, which are important for spiritual practices for a good many people.
Completely OT now, but now that I've actually had some training with nunchaku (or jul bong, if you're Korean) I think that law is pretty funny. You're allowed to have them for martial arts practice or demonstration, or on your way to or from practice or demonstration, or if you are a martial arts instructor, or in the privacy of your own home. What it boils down to is that you're only allowed to have them if you know how to use them. The really funny part of that is, as is obvious to anyone who has used them, if you don't know what you're doing you're really only dangerous to yourself.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
On one hand, I despise litigation like this.
On the other hand, I wish all the people who take broadcast decoding for granted would go to hell.
You see, I would never go to the trouble of using a device to decode scrambled broadcast signals. It's just not the sort of contraption that interests me. I tend to do without entertainment rather than meet such a barrier to its consumption. It's in the same category of "not going to the theatre because the parking lot is too full."
But this DTV thing goes much further than that.
You see, I know PLENTY of people who use a clandestine tv receiver. I've watched them gloat over their cards as if they had found a Willie Mays rookie card in an attic or something. I've seen them setup all kinds of PC contraptions to fake the receiver. Sure, I run in a circle of nerds, students, blacksmiths, musicians, and accountants, so my experience is somewhat skewed -- but still, I've never met ANYBODY who actually pays retail for DTV, yet I know all kinds of people who do the whole card-hacking trick.
From my limited sample, I've deduced that a large number of people get their signals for free.
Because I know this, I would never, ever, buy the service. Wouldn't even consider it. I don't care what it costs. Knowing that a large number of people get it free, and take getting it free for granted, is enough to stop me from any consideration of buying it. As far as doing the card thing, I could care less. If I were going to put that much effort into anything, it would be toward my music gear, not my TV. I'd do without TV first.
So in a way, part of me hopes the plaintiff prevails. I'd be a lot happier if they could come up with a technical solution that works -- because I know the legal solution never will.
Seriously. If I didn't have knowledge that the service was commonly gotten for free, I might take notice of the product. Might even consider buying it. But not in the current situation.
Even if it's worth the price, I'd not voluntarily enter into something that makes me feel like a chump.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Don't forget... there's another 'way out' for the accuser in these cases... if I go to your neighbors' doors and say "I think TheCarp is a soulless child molesting felon" there's nothing they can do because of the "I think" part. If DirecTV published a list of names and said they are of the opinion that these people are criminals, I don't think there's much you could do. Of course, I could be wrong, and of course, I actually *pay* for my DirecTV (though may switch to Dish after this, as a matter of principle, since I own a card programmer myself--- one that I don't THINK can forge DTV cards, but probably could have forged their older obsoleted ones (but didn't)).
Let's see. Guns are designed to kill things, but everyone has a legal right to own one.
Actually no. Guns are designed to fire projectiles out of a barrel at high velocity. Guns can fire many forms of non-lethal forms of munitions like rubber or spongy bullets. The question is intent and action. If I kill, injure or threaten for non legitimate purposes such as self defence, then throw the book at me. If I use the weapon in self defence, for hunting, sport shooting at a gun club or any ligitimate reason defined under law, you cannot criminally or civially try me since I have not commited a crime.
However, buying a smartcard reader means you were going to steal TV programming, and the consequences are more severe. I don't get it.
So does that mean if you own a computer with a cdrom that you should be tried for intelectual property infringement? You could rip the cd and distribute the music. Well if you have not actually committed IP infringment, then no. The point is you cannot be tried for commiting a crime that you have not commited yet. Smartcard readers are becoming more and more standard in devices. To modify what the readers see you need a programmer. Smartcard programmers are multi purpose devices just as a CD-RW are. What gets put on them is what makes things illegal or not.
does prior restraint fit into all this? I don't know the first thing about law but this concise explanation seems to indicate so.
Prior restraint is a description of a law that tries to impose sanctions on an activity to fetter it before it happens. There is one law in this case that could be applied here: DMCA. In general as DMCA is used more to procecute people who use technologies for fair use, it will eventually be either be striken from the books or ruled unconstitutional(theres always hoping).
As for the rest of the essay it is highly critical of prior restraint as afront to liberty as indicate by :
The inexorable consequences of prior restraint, where employed outside the bounds of the doctrine of limited government, are simply an unwise and needless loss of liberty.
Shameless self promotion : The Misadvetures of the in
I was on the impression this is how the legal system works here in USA. Meaning. The defendant only has to prove the device has legal uses (security, automatization, etc)... At that point HUGES has to prove the device was used for something ilegal!
BSD licensed software can't be stolen....
Were I in your shoes, I'd do everything I could to find a lawyer who fits the criteria and slap an extortion and harrassment counter suit, naming damages in the $100 million range. Then refuse to settle.
If you can't find a lawyer who meets the above criteria, contact CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews or some other national news outlet to see if they'd be interested in running your story.
Once it hits TV, lawyers will crawl out of the woodwork to help just for the noteriety.
Good luck!
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
You are a legitimate subscriber to the service? i.e. you pay for all your stations... but say perhaps you are trying to tune everything in for a TV decoded on your linux box, if you're the linux-uberhacker type (remember hacker != cracker).
So you're decoding the signal... but you're paying for it anyways. Is it still illegal? Is DTV allowed to say what I can decode my signal for, or how? Just wondering... (my guess is they'd probably try to regardless)
So, for your anal-ogy, it would be like buying a knife from a death store that also sold guns and poisons. And the description of the knife said, it was long enough to hit the heart of a 250 lb man.
As I said before, that's still not proof you murder people, but it's not a kitchen knife either.
The fact that they can bring suit against anyone is very much a good thing.
In principle, it is, but the way it is currently used is not. A great many suits these days are nothing but shakedowns thinly veiled as a legitimate grievance. Calculating the cost of defending against a baseless or very weak suit and asking for 10% less as a settlement has been raised to an artform.
I claim that you wore a BLUE clown nose on August 12th 1995 and that has caused me great mental anguish. I demand $100 for my pain. Pay up or the lost work and legal fees will easily cost you $1000.
Feel extorted? You should. Or perhaps mugged. The thing is, I know very well that it's probably worth $100 to you to make me go away. We need a pre-trial procedure to filter out this sort of crap before the defendant even hears about it.
As for DirecTV, I suppose next they'll sue everyone who has programmable hardware that can program a flash chip (hint, any PC sold in the last 15-20 years can).
The least they could do is confine their suits to people who bought a programmer, own a dish, and don't subscribe to any satelite service.
I have had a DirecTV account for many years now, have always enjoyed it, and have little or no sympathy for people who pirate the service. I may need to reconsider now (damnit) I find this morally reprehensible.
Huh? So the fact that you're merely going to have to sell your house and your car and declare bankruptcy to pay off the $100,000 in "damages", or waste a lot of your free time and money, maybe get a second mortgage on your home to pay the attourney, instead of going to jail, means that a fundamental human right doesn't apply?
I was just thinking that lawsuits like these would be much better if you could make the "right to an attourney" plea to get a court-appointed attourney. That way, in situations where there's no possible evidence, but the cost of settling ($3500) is a whole lot less than the cost of a lawyer (anyone have some figures?), the little guy at least has a chance...
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
As from the article: '"I didn't know what to do, I was completely flabbergasted. So I sent the money in," says Sosa. "I have a livelihood, and I have a family, and there are a lot of things that I`d rather be than right." '
So, this guy, who had done NOTHING wrong, and could easily prove why he'd bought the device, just caved in... God the whole suing thing is making me sick... the US are the kings of it, but by no means alone... here in Australia we're heading down the same stupid, slippery slope... suiing for everything... and the suer keeps getting money because people cave in and pay 'because fighting it would be too expensive'
It's ridiculous that completely innocent people are starting to just give up and pay up for no good reason because of the way the legal system is perceived to be. (Rightly or wrongly)
Yep, if you're willing to face the abuse of process charges for the cases you lose, there's really nothing stopping you.
I don't hire a programmer everytime I want to do something with my computer. I've learned to be a capable programmer myself.
Would you hire a programmer if, the first time you ran the program it had to work 100% correctly with no bugs, and you did not get more than one chance to run the program (including testing)? You don't get test drives or re-dos in court.
Another good reason to get a lawyer and not represent yourself is that's not just about knowing the law. You also have to be able to present yourself.
Very true. Part of litigation is not just knowing the rules but how to effectively present an argument within the highly formal framework of rules. There are many excellent lawyers who are horrible in the courtroom. I watched many of them while clerking for a judge.
It's very difficult for a client to remove themselves from their emotions which will hurt them. Lawyers on the other hand have no emotions.
True on point one. Point two, I take it, is a funny. Nevertheless, attorneys care about their cases, just in a different way. If a client loses a custody battle, I haven't lost my kid. On the other hand I can't stand losing.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
These are not rhetorical questions. I think an understanding of DirecTV's legal rights with this information might be important. Comparing what happens, what is legal, and what is ethical certainly could have an impact on how the tech community views issues such as this.
With this logic:
I own a knife, so I am a murderer. I even own many knives, so I am a mass murderer.
I own a CD burner, so I must be guilty of copyright infringement (no: theft of IP) on 2/3 of the MPAA catalog, and I will have to give them 99% of my earnings during my whole life.
So, as a criminal, I've got nothing else to lose, and I can go shoot their lawyers; they destroyed my life, so I'll shorten theirs. And the world may be a better place after that.
Hey, this is the thinking beside any desesperate terrorism (Palestinians, poor people in corrupted countries, and so on)!
I wish I could say I'm happy not to live in the US, but this insanity comes slowly into Europe too. I'm afraid getting rid of all lawyers would not be enough.
(PS: Message for you little CIA computer reading all the web searching for terrorists: no, I don't intend to kill anybody. Please don't file me as a terrorist for explaining how this insane system will create them. Thanks.)
Christophe (Don't hesitate to point out my spelling and grammar mistakes, I want to learn - Thanks).