EFF Coordinates Fight Against DirecTV

wumarkus420 writes "In response to recent lawsuits filed by DirecTV against purchasers of smartcard equipment, the EFF and Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society have announced a new site devoted to the legal fight against DirecTV's aggressions. Hopefully, this new site will provide innocent consumers that have been threatened under the veil of the DMCA with professional legal advice and information."

Comments

their advice

[rokzy]

3. If you currently subscribe to DirecTV, don't change a thing. A company official has testified that a sudden termination or change in service spells likely guilt in DirecTV's eyes, and a judge may see this logic.

omg what a great business model, sue people for cancelling service to prevent people who will quit because they don't like their business practices.

and wtf does "sudden" mean:
"hello I'd like to stop subscibing, please phase out all my channels over the next 2 years"

Re:Oh, come on

[ShadowDrake]

>In this case I can't buy the "substantial non->infringing use" argument, as having dabbled in >satellite technology for a while, I know how >huge the market is for pirate cards.

FWIW, it might be worth exploring the permissible uses before calling everyone thieves.

I recall seeing a mainboard with a pack-in feature that was a 'smart-card reader'. It didn't look like any type of flash-card slot I recognised-- perhaps those cards can be used for system-locking or login, or to store small amounts of valuable data (encryption keys?) in a conveinent formfactor.

I love how the answer is litigation though. Didn't Directv used to have a pretty respectable record for attacking this problem with TECHNICAL measures?

Technical approaches are the only sensible way to approach this sort of problem. You may be able to sue Craig and Amy Signal-Stealer, but will you find the 500,000 others doing the same?

Final Thought: If you want to ensure the distribution is controlled, stick to distribution that can be managed all the way to the set. (I'm thinking something like cable, but where they will actively pull up the wires from nonsubscribers)

You can buy a gun without being branded a murderer

[fruey]

... and this case seems remarkably similar to me.

Victor Hugo said, back in 1831/1832, that the printing press killed architecture, by taking away part of what architectural edifices were about (telling a story, imposing a theme, etc). Books lasted longer, could be more widely diffused, and were not subject to being rebuilt and demolished in the same ways (amongst other things, for more read "Ceci tuera cela" in "Notre Dame de Paris").

The Internet is now killing all other media, because it is at once all media, and is the same thing to all people, rather like the book was more accessible than the edifice as Victor Hugo observed had happened from the 15th century onwards*.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, ITV Digital went down due to piracy. Canal Horizons, the Moroccan digital TV unit, also went down due to piracy. Not that people were pirating their signal, they were pirating French digital TV instead ;-)

All this leads us to the logicial conclusion that paying for recorded content is going to be a harder and harder thing to enforce, whatever the medium. Which is great, in my opinion. It might bring back live entertainment, something which was originally killed by the recorded work. People moan about how piracy is killing CDs, DVDs and so on - but the real artists who could really perform live lost a livelihood to recorded works. Maybe they will see a renaissance, which would be much more democratic than some big-ass company making all the $$$ for a recording.

I can't help feeling that content is priced too high. Why should "Friends" actors make a million bucks an episode? Why should Arnold Schwarzenegger make so much? Careful editing and effects respectively make these two vehicles much more successful than the actual TALENT (or lack of) of the actors.

The re-democratisation of content is perhaps happening today. And live shows might perhaps make a comeback. I'd much rather hear a live show in a bar (sometimes for like $5 and maybe I'll leave a tip for the band or buy their self-marketed CD) than pay $15 for recorded works of some pimped singer who actually can't play an instrument or write anything, just has a nice voice _once it is processed_ ...

DirecTV, indeed TV in general, had it coming to them. Even their good content is becoming diluted by the sheer volume of crap out there, and indeed the success of mediocre vehicles like recent Friends, Simpsons and others just goes to show that the public is less and less able to find something good to watch (or listen to). People probably have a strong urge to pirate because it is quite frankly not worth the subscription fee most of the time. And, Internet is already giving us content on demand, including movies, on the wrong side of the law, while conventional media is actually playing catchup. Time to start seeing this for what it is, a paradigm shift for the 21st century.

* indeed Hugo was talking about an era before his time, the 15th century, when Gutenberg's press was invented. The novel "Notre Dame de Paris" was written in 1831-2 but the story takes place in 1482.

Re:Oh, come on

[Chasing Amy]

You obviously don't know much about the reason people are so annoyed by DirecTV's insipid legal wrangling about smartcard-related equipment. There have been several *documented* cases of programmers and engineers or just plain computer geeks who like to experiment buying these devices for 100% legitimate smartcard programming uses, some of whom have never even owned satellite equipment. Nevertheless, they have been contacted by lawyers for DirecTV and bullyed into forfeiting the equipment and paying a settlement fee, or facing lengthy and expensive legal battles to prove their innocence. That's legalistic extortion, not a valid way to protect your service.

These cases have been documented and there have been articles about them on /. before, so do a little reading. It is *clearly* a substantial non-infringing use when you don't even own satellite equipment and buy smartcard-related/"unlooper" equipment for completely unrelated purposes. It isn't like there aren't many, many uses for smartcard systems that don't involve DirecTV.

> half the population of Scotland

A nation the English have treated very well in the last few centuries. No wonder they weren't paying for overpriced satellite services. People with a lower median income than their neighbours will naturally not be as willing to pay as often for disposable entertainment. Blame that for the collapse of ITV rather than the piracy itself. It's not like most of those people would have actually paid for the service even if the piracy weren't relatively easy.

That's the mistake of the content industry--they blame every problem on piracy. Instead of blaming $18 CD prices in a downturned economy for the decline in CD sales, they blame digital piracy. Instead of blaming $8.50 movie tickets and $5.00 drinks in a down economy for less-than-expected box office results, they blame piracy. Why not, it's easy, and it helps them eliminate a foe. But it's far from accurate.

Yet when a company starts extorting "settlement" money and equipment from people under the threat of expensive lawsuits, for buying equipment which has any number of geeky-goodness uses unrelated to DirecTV, that's unacceptable. I'm perfectly happy with my digital cable TV service, and yet I'm tempted to buy an "unlooper" and some legitimate smartcard equipment to play with just so I can get that letter from DirecTV. I have a feeling that this will end with DirecTV losing a class-action lawsuit brought by those wrongfully accused and extorted.

It is just unacceptably for a company to do what DirecTV is doing, or to do what the RIAA is doing by sending out DMCA letters based on strings within filenames, etc. Any time you condemn the innocent with the guilty, it is not justice, and it *cannot* be tolerated in our society.

Re:Oh, come on

[fyonn]

I don't know, when I drive by the IBM compound I am blasted with radiation. I guess if they wanted their information private they wouldn't use wireless phones and 802.11g connections.

I know you're being sarcastic, but why not consider it. they are broadcasting information, why shouldn't someone else listen. they don't have to break in or taps lines or lay bugs, all they are doing is sitting nearby. if two people are talking at normal volume in the library, are other ppl commiting crimes listening to them?

if ibm want to keep their info private then they should make sure it's encrypted to that others can't make any sense of the transmissions. thats alot more effective than trying to sue the listeners.

not that this idea is perfect, as it makes parabolic and laser mikes alot more acceptable, which I don't like. but I still think that if something is broadcast towards you, then you should not be made a criminal just by listening to it.

dave

Re:Oh, come on

[Dun Malg]

They are not going after legitimate smart cart vendors.

Regardless of the "intended" market for card readers/writers, there are non-illegal uses for them. Do you blame non-DTV-hackers for buying a $50 T911 instead of a $500 card reader development kit? (yes, there are cheaper "non-hacker" card readers now, but there weren't a year ago; I looked for one)

They only sent letters to people who bought the readers that had been modified to write to directv's cards by circumventing their security measures. The readers were explicitly advertised for this use only.

Incorrect. They sell smartcard readers with un-programmed microcontrollers. Until you "flash the atmel", it's just a blank microcontroller connected to a DB9 and a SC slot. None of the units they sell are shipped "modified to write to directv's cards". They are a blank slate. Until you flash the microcontroller they do EXACTLY NOTHING. You can argue "intent", and "everyone knows..." all you want, but try winning a court case by saying "most people buy these for defrauding DTV". The charge is easily beaten by saying "I don't. I use them for (whatever)". The problem is that it takes many expen$ive lawyer-hours to get to that point, and DTV knows it. They're swatting flies with a 4X8 sheet of plywood here, and it's despicable.

Copyright, revisited

[Rogerborg]

The Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

Inventors for all practical purposes now means corporate entities, because if they can ban the tools required to investigate and experiment with technology, then the era of the individual inventor is over. The ability of corporations to stifle scientific investigation now rivals that of the Inquisition.

Now the question isn't "what can I invent?", but "can I afford a lawyer to defend my right to invent?"

I actually feel physically sick.