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Cable Box Piracy Ring Busted

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the too-much-freedom-to-innovate dept.

WC as Kato writes "The U.S. Attorney's Office said it has busted a huge cable piracy ring. They made over $10 million in 5 years by advertising on the Internet and in magazines. Their only cover to the illegality of their actions was a disclaimer that the boxes were not illegal to own. Police say customers who purchased them are now at risk of being arrested. Did any customer actually fall for their 'legal disclaimer?'"

18 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. DMCA,,,? by cRueLio · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I bet they will try the customers under the DMCA, having used the cable box as a "circumvention device" against protections put up by the cable provider.

    Then again, a crafty legal time might just be able to argue this case in terms of the fact that the customer was fooled by the legal disclaimer.

    Just my two cents...

    --
    Investing forum
    1. Re:DMCA,,,? by Eggplant62 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Before the DMCA, technically they were right, these boxes _are_ legal to own.
      Now, its very illegal to _USE_ them... But to just own one, that was not.


      I'm curious about this situation where I might be able to see where there *is* a legal, non-infringing use. Suppose I already am a subscriber, but I purchase my own equipment, ie, one of these black boxes, to use instead of my cable provider's in order to save the extra charges they tack on to the bill for each box? Fair use? Or illegal?
    2. Re:DMCA,,,? by Urkki · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually I see this as one of the few places where the principle of DMCA is somewhat justified. Ie the principle that it's illegal to go around digital protection techniques in order to use non-free digital content for free.

      Anything beyond that (such as saying you can't make mp3 rips of your own CDs for your own convenience, like for car *and* portable player *and* summer cottage), as well as the punishments in DMCA are still ridiculous though, as well as a lot of other implied stuff in it.

    3. Re:DMCA,,,? by mark_lybarger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      interesting. so you own the right to use the content on the cd you purchased, but not the right to inspect and possibly use the extra content being streamed into your house by the cable company provider that you didn't order?

      lets say new cd's start coming out with extra content on them (high quality mp3's of tracks not on the disk perhaps) that is encrypted, and to access the work, you need to purchase a key from the distribution company (RIAA). maybe microsoft media player licenses the right to have embeded keys in their software so they can play the encrypted mp3's but no other software can that doesn't pay the high license fee. if you figure out how to decode those mp3's, is it _right_ to listen to the content contained on them?

    4. Re:DMCA,,,? by cayenne8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know....they've gone after people who bought stuff from the satelite tv people....who were based in Canada. I hear Direct TV is going after people they had on their lists as customers...for buying a card re-programmer, which does have alternate uses besides pirating satellite tv...even without any more proof than they bought a product from a company that DID sell somethings that allowed for descrambling the signal.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  2. I don't understand ... by errl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... why people never stop their illegal activities when they've earned enough money? I mean, $5,000,000 should be enough for anyone for quite a while? It seems that they'll eventually get caugh otherwise and don't have any real use of the money anyways, like in this case...

    1. Re:I don't understand ... by fmlug.org · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Money, thats why people dont stop there illegal actions. Its like gambaling, oh I just won $50 but if I put it all back in I get $500. That kinda pay off clouds peoples judgement, most of the time the fact that they may end up losing everything doesnt even enter into their minds. We live in a society where every one wants to get rich easily and dont wana work for the money. The reality is the easier the money is to come by the quicker your going to lose it, well at least most of the time. I guess thats my 2 cents.

  3. Re:I have to say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I live near glasgow and it's a cottage industry locally; pirate games/dvds/software, cable boxes/sky cards, chipping xboxes/ps2's etc etc.

    Thats what happens when you get fairly savvy ex electronics workers sacked by IBM/National Semiconductor/Motorola etc etc...

  4. Scrambled Descramblers by AndroidCat · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I wonder if these jerks were any relation to the ones who keep spamming me for "completely legal" descrambling devices?

    The fact that they hijacked someone else's computer to send me that "completely legal" message would be a tip-off if all the other signs failed.

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  5. 'I'm guessing you took the five dollar law class.. by Channard · · Score: 4, Interesting
    .. instead of the ten dollar one.' as the Gord would say. Certainly it seems that there are some completely loopy disclaimers that crop up when grey or illegal activities are involved. There's:

    'These discs are only provided as backups and you must own the original game.' - which raises the question, why isn't the person backing up the game themselves?


    Or 'These roms are legal to download provided you delete them within 24 hours' - despite there being no such law.


    Or my personal favourite.. 'If you are affiliated with any government, or ANTI-Piracy group, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), local or state police or government agencies, any record label or recording company or distribution company or group or any other related group or were formally a worker of one you cannot enter this web site, cannot access any of its files and you cannot view any of the pages contained herein. All the objects on this site are private property and are not meant for viewing or any other purposes other then bandwidth space. Do not enter whatsoever! If you enter this site you are not agreeing to these terms and you are violating code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1995. That means that you cannot threaten our ISP(s) or any person(s) or company storing these files, cannot prosecute any person(s) affiliated with this page which includes family, friends or individuals who run or enter this web site.'. Wow. Well, that's the feds screwed then. Anyone got any examples of loopier disclaimers?

  6. Re:I have to say... by doogieb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Here's a link to The Register's story about the Christmas raid on Ingliston market.

    --
    Doogie. If you can read this, my sig fell off
  7. Re:Arrested? by dekashizl · · Score: 4, Interesting
    AC Says:
    do you accept a government who wants to arrest you for 'illegally viewing' television?
    Most important is being aware of the penalties for your actions ahead of time.

    If I know exactly the penalty for something along with the likelihood of getting caught, I can decide to do it or not. These "open source" contracts between citizens and governance are an acceptable part of our society that allows large scale organization. (For example, we may sadly all need to surrender the sovereignty over our freezers and submit to periodic random freezer inspections in order to minimize risk of a catsrophic biological release).

    It is only when laws and consequences are opaque, unknown, or nondeterministic that they become problematic. This is what was interesting about this particular case: the people who bought the boxes were told (incorrectly) that they were legal.
  8. Re:These people aren't "stealing" anything! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Or does it? IF they made everything themselves, I would say that this is indeed hacking.

    My definition of a "hacker" is someone with high technical skills. An experienced programmer who can write almost anything from scratch, an electrician who builds his own techy stuff, just for fun.

    This is in fact what they have to do to "pirate" the cable tv.. decode/reverse-engineer signals/encryptions/filters and build hardware.

    But.. if they just received the hardware blueprints and a DECODE.ROM file, then I'd go back to refering to them as "pirates" (Stealing with someone elses tools/property)

  9. Stainless Steel Rat by wowbagger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" series, one of the central tenets of the lead character, "Slippery" Jim DeGriz, the most wanted interstellar criminal, was "When a con finally starts going bad, walk away - don't try to cash that last check". Hence he very rarely got caught.

    It is the same thing here - the folks who are smart enough to walk away before things go south are never caught - thus we never really hear about them in the news. The only ones we hear about are the stupid ones who cash the last check and get busted.

    I once heard a cop say "I've been throwing these punks up against the wall for 20 years, and I've never once found a Mensa card in their pockets."

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  10. Actually.... by TygerFish · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, I've seen people pay more for it... especially in packages combinating basic television, premium/movie channels, data services and what have you.

    Considering that in New York city at least, Time Warner Cable appears to have withdrawn pay-per-view movie access from all but its digital customers without bothering to mention that it has done so, there is a strong pressure for its customers to pay more.

    It is also easy to see why some people see nothing wrong with trying to avoid paying eight-hundred-forty dollars per year for access to the USA network and, eventually, Gigli shown and repeated again and again and again...

    --
    To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
    "Yeah. It smells, too..."
  11. Re:$70 a month to watch advertisements?? by DingoBueno · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If anyone out there has digital tv, they are monitoring you, they will use the data to directly advertise to you and to take as much of your money as possible.
    While I don't want to be monitored, I don't mind targetted advertising. Let them do it anonymously. I'd rather see ads for new-to-market products and services that interest me rather than a lot of garbage that does not.

    This is, for the most part, good stuff. It's what makes the economy run. At least in the US, we could use a boost. I have a job so I can make money and give it away in exchange for things I want.

    I honestly don't care if advertisers know every single thing about my life. What's the worst they're gonna do? I get 30 spams per hour. They're not gonna do anything worse.

    And remember, the more tinfoil you buy, the better the economy. Just keep those hats off until a real threat comes around.
    --
    ascii art
  12. Here's my problem... by j-turkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My problem with this is that part of the AT&T breakup ruling was that AT&T could not require you to rent or purchase their equipment (anyone here old enough to remember the US pre AT&T breakup remembers that it was "illegal" to buy your own phone and hook it up...or "illegal" to hook up additional phones on your line).

    The federal government stepped in and said that you can't be trapped into renting or buying equipment to use a communications service.

    Now, that being said, why do I have to buy or rent equipment from a cable provider? I can provide my own cable modem. If I plug my computer directly into the wall for cable (in order to use a product like Showshifter, and I pay for premium service -- why can't I descramble it myself? It's decidely not stealing in any was (unless you count timeshifting as stealing, but this is a completely unrelated issue). That being said, why can't I have a descrambler box?

    This is no different than Hughes witch-hunt where they went after anyone who bought a smart card reader...they just assumed that anyone who bought one was going to steal their service. Sure, they may catch a few theives, but at what expense?

    I'm surprised that many of the same slashdot readers who were against the DMCA (and its use in enforcing copyrights) seem to support the use of the DMCA here. I can also draw some parallels to the DVD-CCA/DeCSS case with regards to the DMCA, but hopefully, those anti-DMCA readers will get the picture by now.

    --Turkey
    --

    -Turkey

  13. Re:Here you go: by Whatchamacallit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah but the guy with a black box may think he's safe because he pays for basic cable, but the black box decodes all the channels including the pay per view stuff so he's really not paying for it all.

    A person using this while paying for basic cable service is theft. It's no different then walking into a store, shoplifting a bunch of stuff and paying for a pair of socks!

    To steal cable without paying at all requires running a cable a splicing it to the pole. This happens but it's less likely due to the technical issues. It's also easier to get caught.