Former Anti-Piracy 'Bag Man' Turns On DirecTV

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."

Comments

Sony V Scimeca

[Sanity]

Fisher's lawyer ... sued the company for extortion on behalf of seven clients who claimed to have ordered smart card programmers and other equipment for legitimate purposes, and subsequently received DirecTV's threatening letter. But last year a county judge ruled that DirecTV's mailings were connected with litigation, and were therefore privileged; he dismissed the case and awarded DirecTV nearly $100,000 in attorney's fees.

This reminds me of the EFF's Sony V Scimeca case against the RIAA's extortion tactics, and makes me wonder whether it is destined for a similar fate.

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?

It isn't SCOish

[Anonymous Coward]

DirecTV is continuing to operate this SCOish collectors and lawyers devision.

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

[LostCluster]

The problem is, the presumption still remains in favor of the defense. Even when going up against a defendant who presents nothing, it's still required for the plantiff to present something that leads to the conclusion that the defendant is liable.

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

[theCoder]

There are DirecTV Thieves.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

At least for Cable TV, the law does call it "theft of service". Just a point to squeeze into your abnormally clenched rectum.

Re:It isn't SCOish

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

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; the "No Electronic Theft" bill was signed into law a good 7 years ago, the usage is established, stop playing games about it.

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.

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. If a pervert spies on a lady undressing who forgot to close her window is the pervert justified in taking advantage in your opinion.

There are bigger problems in the world than some people watching satellite TV without paying DirecTV for the privilege!

The biggest problem in the world is the one that affects you personally. Right now the biggest problem in the world is your stupid posts, at least to me.

- Marco

Re:It isn't SCOish

[AtariAmarok]

Copyright violation is Theft It isn't, it never was. It just does not meet the definition of theft. Do you also think hacking someone's wlan from their parking lot is OK That is an invalid comparison; as hacking someone's lan involves intrusion INTO the lan. It is not "just listening". If a pervert spies on a lady undressing who forgot to close her window is the pervert justified in taking advantage in your opinion. Just because it is wrong, or is a crime, does not make it theft. No Electronic Theft" bill was signed into law a good 7 years ago, the usage is established, stop playing games about it. The bill's title was unintentionally apt, as there was absolutely nothing about electronic theft within it. Theft means theft, despite semantic games.

Re:It isn't SCOish

[theCoder]

Bickering about language will accomplish little, but those who have used "theft" and "piracy" for copyright infringement deliberately chose those words for their negative connotation.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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. If a pervert spies on a lady undressing who forgot to close her window is the pervert justified in taking advantage in your opinion.


Yes and yes. Well a qualified yes. To the first one, any transmissions in the ISM band are there for the taking. Get over it. It's public unlicensed spectrum (except for Part 97 and possibly other Parts). For passive listening I don't think there is any question that is OK to receive and decode Part 15 transmissions, like those of a WLAN. Where a line can be drawn is at transmitting back (active attacks or simply using the network), but the possible crimes have nothing to do with it being a WLAN. In fact, under part 15 , the onus is on the WLAN operator to contend with "harmful interference." This means its more a question of conventional computer crime laws (the same that would apply if I hooked into a wired ethernet).

As for the pervert. I don't think there is anything wrong with someone peeping if somebody chooses to do something in full view. How the fuck would you draw the line between intentional and unintentional viewing? If I can peep on someone from my property or public property without trespassing, then that is the peepees problem.
A possible line can be drawn at the distribution of recordings (just as can be done in the above scenario).

Besides, do you actually think laws "preventing" any kind of passive activity even work? "Don't look at that naked woman from your apartment that is too stupid to close her If you do, you are hopelessly naive.

In my ethical framework, if there are physical phenomenon (like modulated EM waves) occuring near me physically without my control then I have every right to observe them with my physical senses (eyes) or use tools to construct a device to receive them as long as I don't hurt someone in constructing the tool. If you don't want me listening, keep your waves away from me.

Re:It isn't SCOish

[theCoder]

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.

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 should be considered a maintenance expense, but I'm not an accountant, so maybe it's not).

The money for the broadcasting infrastructure has to come from one of three places: advertisers, viewers, or the government. ... It's not viable to ask advertisers to bear the sole responsibility for subsidising the medium

Why not? I agree that a single satellite is a much larger investment than a broadcast tower, but the number of satellites is much smaller than the number of broadcast towers. I don't know any details, but I'd be surprised if there are more that 5 satellites in geosync orbit to service the U.S. (probably more like 2-3) compared to the number of broadcast towers for the same area. I'd suspect that the costs for the satellites, though high, would be less than the costs for all the broadcast towers.

However, the real problem is a checken-or-the-egg one -- DirecTV could make money off of adertising if it had the viewership, but it takes time to get that viewership. Since broadcast towers are smaller, they can be built in a more granular fashion, as vierership supports them. In DirecTV's case, they had to essentially build all the towers first, which I agree is a significant undertaking, and one which probably couldn't suceed on adertising alone, at least initially.

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?

I meant that DirecTV would sell dishes much much like antenna manufacturers sell antennas for over the air broadcasts. Antennas don't do anything special, other than help collect the signals, just like satellite dishes do. The difference is that the signal wouldn't be encrypted and anyone could access it. Of course, this means that other companies could more easily compete with DirecTV which probably explains why they wouldn't like that. After further thought, I'll admit that this option, though nice for consumers, may not be so good for the company.

The fact is that DirecTV is not viable without paying subscribers.

Again, after further thought, I'll admit that it might not be, at least initially and with the current system. However, that still doesn't allow DirecTV to go around bullying people, or even, IMO, allow them to try to prevent people from receiving and decrypting their signals. Taking a page out of McBride's book, the only people DirecTV could legitimately go after are people they have contracts with. If I, as someone who's never had a relationship with DirecTV, built a device that picked up EM signals directed at me and translated them into something my TV could display, I don't see why anyone would think that (a) it's illegal or (b) I should stop. People don't have a right to get paid. Of course, if DirecTV changed their encryption so only their customers could still access the data, then I'd be out of luck.

Of course, maybe I feel this way because I work with technology and see technological solutions. Lawyers probably only see lawyer solutions.

Re:It isn't SCOish

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that people think that, just because they can do something, they have a right to do so?


Maybe not an absolute right, but if you can't figure out a way to keep me from decoding EM energy that happens to land in my yard near a parabolic dish that I built from parts that I obtained without knowingly hurting or killing anyone then that is not my problem and I refuse to admit that I am doing anything wrong.

It is not a moral dilemma for me at all. Stealing cable is another thing. I have to trespass in order to do that (if I don't have to trespass then it isn't stealing, that is just a cable monopoly brainwashing word). If someone figured out a way to receive cable with an ultrasensitive receiver then good for him. Descrambling channels is not wrong as far as I'm concerned either. Information theory says that the descrambled and scrambled signal are not fundamentally different. If it means so much to the cable company, then it is there prerogative to physically BLOCK the signal from reaching me, and I grant that that is their right.

I understand that DirecTV needs compensation to stay in business, but you can't convince me that I am in the wrong for not supporting their contrived business model. That is their problem, not mine. I don't believe that the "Right for a Corporation to Make Money with whatever obsolete business model de jour" is a fundamental right. Businesses adapt or die.

As for copyrights, this is not a copyright issue. I am all for (limited) copyrights. Copyright is to protect the distribution rights of the copyright holder, it is not (in my opinion) able to control who gets to decode the material when it is blasted across the northwestern hemisphere from a transmitter. The copyright holders of DirecTV material have every right in my mind to choose to not broadcast on DirecTV. If they choose too, then it is not my problem that the waves that they are spreading in the vicinity of my house can be decoded with equipment that I can build or buy without hurting or killing anyone.

Re:It isn't SCOish

[10101001 10101001]

>>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).

>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, purifies it, then funnels the water into the local river. Instead of charging for the water itself, they'd charge a monthly fee for little plastic cups. However, some people are bringing their own cups, and the company doesn't like that so it pushes to have laws passed that even though it's using public property and dumping its product on a public space, only people who rent its cups can use the product.

If it was the other way around, and people were making up fake cards to get a drink from a otherwise closed tap, you'd have a point. Then it'd just be fraud.

Re:It isn't SCOish

[Penguinshit]

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 into giving themselves up. A single letter on attorney letterhead is enough to get them to cease action against an individual (absent other proof such as a "subscription" to services from certain dealers in hacked cards or the software thereon known as "3M" scripts).

Re:It isn't SCOish

[Jafafa Hots]

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?

Why is it that a company that needs the government to enforce its otherwise impractical business model automatically thinks it has the right to do so?

A Good Step

[osewa77]

When people speak out on issues like this, it helps managers in big corporations to .. err ... be careful to clean out their closets. What you don't want people to know about, don't do. Don't hide behind your 'corporate position'.

Re:Coerce how?

[LostCluster]

It's especially expensive that DirecTV gets to file the lawsuit in the court of their choosing, you'd have to send a lawyer to that destination in order to just motion for it to be moved into your hometown.

Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it!

[h4rm0ny]

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:It's an open standard, silly.

[LostCluster]

So what that its an open standard, thats perfectly irelevant. paper and pencil is an open standard too, but if I make a note to the bank teller for money its still using the paper to steal you cant use an open standard to do anything you want!!!

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:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it!

[jmt9581]

One way to work around it is that if you file a lawsuit and lose, you have to pay the winning side the cost of your legal actions. That way neither side is able to drive up the stakes by hiring high-priced lawyers, ala SCO.

Re:It's an open standard, silly.

[LostCluster]

One detail that also needs to be proven is that the "only-useful-for-stealing" equipment was used against this plantiff. If the hacker turns out to have stolen Dish Network services instead... then DirecTV collects nothing, but Dish Network might want to file a lawsuit after realizing this.

My Advice:

[Sophrosyne]

Don't use their products. If they want to screw people around with underhanded tactics in the name of a couple bucks- find someone else to deal with.
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:Coerce how?

[mdwebster]

In many parts of the country you will be poorly served by a public defender. This is a cut-and-paste from a blog comment talking about an NPR story on Friday:

Today, NPR covered the situation in Lousiana. In that state, public defenders are paid for by parishes. The money comes from (a portion of) fees collected from traffic violations. That's it. Though there is a minimal amount of state money sent to the parishes, it's done without regard to caseload or need. The sparse funds are then paid out to private firms, mostly through flat-fee contracts, where the firms agree to take on any and all cases for one fixed price.

The result would be hilarious, were it not so deadly serious. The average public defender there is saddled with over 600 felony cases a year. This includes capital murder cases. In the examples cited today, they covered an attorney who was given 11 minutes to prepare for a murder trial -- on a day when she had to deal with over twenty other cases. When the attorney complained, the judge gave her another hour to prepare, but refused to give her time to find or call experts for her client. Less than eight hours later, her client was sentenced to life behind bars. And that's not an extraordinary case. The attorney went on to the next of her 400+ active cases.

Louisiana is far from the only state in this kind of situation. In fact, flat-fee justice is spreading as state after state looks for a way to trim costs. After all, people don't call the state up and complain that defendants aren't get a fair trial. Heck no, people want blood. Louisiana, which can't find the funds to pay public defenders, finds more than 300% more to pay district attorneys -- this despite the fact that more than 80% of cases use a court appointed defense attorney. So, on average, each defense lawyer is carrying three times the case load, and facing a district attorney with three times as long to prepare.

Virginia, a state that pays all defense funds from the state, might look better on the surface, but Virginia uses flat fees in another way. Attorneys are paid for the type of case. For example, $395 for a class "B" felony. That rate doesn't change whether the client pleads guilty or innocent, and it's no different whether there's a plea agreement on the first day, or months of work leading up to a trial. So, where is the incentive for the lawyers? Plead everything. Fast.

Tell me you still think justice will be served with a public defender ...

If they would SELL the services in the first place

[AtariAmarok]

There would be less of a problem with a "need" to have hack-cards if DirecTV would only sell the services in the first place. Mainly, network feeds. I'm pretty much barred from getting DirecTV because I want it to have CBS/ABC/NBC/Fox. The local affiliates have a policy of "we don't grant waivers", and on top of that, they are not full affiliates anyway (pre-empting prime-time network shows willy-nilly and never re-showing them. If DirecTV could find some way around the local broadcasters' censorship and send network content in the satellite signal, that would be a big plus.

Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it!

[LostCluster]

Any scheme needs to take into account the margin of defeat. If the case is close, then it's fair to not charge the loser. However, if the case should have never gone to court because it was extremely lopsided in one direction, then the penalties kick in. Just like there's punitive damages for a defendant who's so far wrong they need extra punishment, there should be a punative damages award to the defense when a case that never should have been filed is lost.

Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it!

[ultranova]

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.

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 January and end in March. In January, the lawyer worked Xj hours (in this case), in February Xf hours, and March Xm hours. In January he worked Xjt hours total, in February Xft hours and in March Xmt hours.

Now we calculate how much of the lawyers pay went towards working in this case by X/Xt. So, in January the lawyers fees for the case were Xj*N/Xjt. The total fees for this case were N(Xj+Xf+Xm)/(Xjt+Xft+Xmt). Simple, eh ?

Of course, this has the problem of ensuring correctly reported hours. Unfortunately, I can't think of a fix for that.

Let freedom ring

[max born]

In the bigger picture DirecTV should have no right to control information it beams over public airways. Unfortunately, the television industry, like the record industry before it, will die a slow and litigious death.

I urge everyone, download DirecTV programs to your hard drive, convert to mpegs using transcode, and distribute on gnutella.

That'll learn them.

Let the world change. Out with old.

It is on their property....

[Mr. Cancelled]

I've always had a really hard time trying to side w/the satellite providers on the issue of piracy.

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...

Definitions aren't imaginary either

[AtariAmarok]

This is not "the world of null-A". The definitions of words are not static Definitions aren't imaginary, either. The only reason the term "theft" is being used is because it is emotionally-charged, despite the fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on.

Re:Definitions aren't imaginary either

[f0rt0r]

When talking in legal terms ( US legal, in this case ) then you need to look at the current legal definition of the words you are using. Not many English-speaking people would argue over the work "is", but Bill Clinto still asked the court to define it during his impeachment trial for legal reasons.Theft, stealing, and piracy all imply the removal of property from someone's possession, and decoding signals transmitted into your home does not correlate with that at all.

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone referring to the blindly aggressive tactics of corporations as "the mob", I love it!

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.

Re:It's an open standard, silly.

[Vicegrip]

"Why did so many people settle? Because they were GUILTY...."

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:Coerce how?

[ultranova]

That said, I am generally against piracy of cable. I don't think that the arguments that apply to music apply to cable in even the smallest regard. If you steal cable/satelite access, then you deserve to be punished if you are caught.

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 mailbox, after all. And if the newspaper was printed in some obscure language which only the subscribers were supposed to know, would learning that language make me a thief by allowing me to read the newspaper ?

And if there was a rock concert near my home, would I be a thief because I listened to it without paying for a ticket ? And if the music was so faint that I couldn't hear it well, and I was old and needed a hearing device, and I turned up the sound volume of the device so I could better listen to the music, would I be a thief ?

"Stealing a broadcasted signal" is a contradiction in terms and completely absurd as a concept. The US legal system makes itself a bigger mockery of justice each year.

If you are going to moderate this flamebait based on that last remark, then don't - instead, give me proof that I'm wrong. Please ?-)

An ole quote ....

[argoff]

That reminds me of an old quote about copyrights, to paraphrase ...

"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:Coerce how?

[Lumpy]

you certianly can get court costs + damages if someone sues you. it is done all the time espically when the judge sees that there was ZERO evidence.

I know, I've been down this road before.. the judge was extremely upset at the plaintiff company and awarded me court and attorney costs + damages due to personal stress and lost wages.

the important part is having all your ducks. when you show the judge that the company is acting out malice and you are not the only one the judge get's really upset as he see's many more of these cases coming and tries to stop the crud right then and there.

Also having enough friends in big news media... a full out new coverage of Company X harassing the little guy will put a large amount of control over ANY company in a fast way... Gawd I love FOX news and their affiliate FOX stations...

"Everything is permissible..." (the ethics of /.)

[superultra]

I know I'm generalizing the slashdot community here, but I find it quite amusing that when someone posts something about how they freely download MP3s or games, a dozen anonymous cowards respond with some attempt at "You're stealing my job" or "You're a thief." The pro-piracy comments are often modded as trolls.

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.