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DirecTV Extortion Program stopped by EFF
eticket writes "After several years of an Organized Extortion program DirecTV has been stopped by the EFF. As many of you may know DirecTV has been suing people who purchased card programers even if they had legitimate reasons for them. Many have settled to avoid legal issues. The problem was they had to prove innocence instead of DirecTV proving guilt. The only thing that DirecTV did was say they purchased the card programmer from a site that sold Satellite pirating equipment. Even though there are legitimate uses. Thanks to the EFF for stopping this horrible miscarriage of the legal system. "
IANAL, so, the obvious question that arises is... Will those that settled be able to turn around and sue DirecTV? I know they settled, however, when they signed the settlement paperwork it was under false pretenses. Meaning that the people that bought the equipment probably thought it was illegal (at the time) to own it and settled to avoid further prosecution. I'm sure many didn't bother to contact a lawyer to determine their rights, but after such a change in policy I could see it happening. I mean DirecTV all but admitted that they were going after these people that might have had legitimate uses for it.
Hmmm.
I had to look this one up:
That just sounded like really strange wording to me, but I guess I just don't have that broad of a vocabulary.
Also - DirecTV isn't STOPPING it's hunt... they're merely modifying it:
As someone is the market for cable/satellite service I had been looking for a way to really differentiate between Dish Network and DirectTV. I think my decision has now been made. Or, does Dish Network also like to sue people?
Casual Games/Downloads
...I believe it's long overdue. What relief do those who settled now get? IANAL, but I don't believe they can sue over a settled case. DirecTV got what they wanted; they threw a scare into potential pirates. Do you think they care about what little PR they're going to get over this? Of course not; it'll blow over by tomorrow and we'll move on to the next miscarriage of justice.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
I find it appalling that people nowdays act in a manner to prove not innocence, but their lack of guilt, rather than put their feet down and say "I'm innocent until proven guilty, and if you think I'm guilty then it's your job to prove it."
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Clearly, I don't believe that 170,000 people bought card programmers just to play with the technology, but surely some percentage of those users purchased them for uses other than piracy-- however as a someone who has no experience with DirecTV, I can't imagine what they are?
So what exactly are the legitimate uses of having a card programmer?
The best way to stop such DMCA nonsense is not in the courts, it is by grassroots public awareness. If somebody tries to sell you a DirectTV subscription, or a Lexmark printer (with DMCA protected non-3rd party ink cartridges) let them know exactly why you will not purchase it. If they hear it more than once or twice, this will work its way back to headquarters. Eventually the execs will clue in that they are pissing off enough potential customers that they will back off, even if the law was on their side.
My rights don't need management.
Perhaps Directv is backing off a bit now that they have ended/replaced the easily hackable older cards (h and hu/p3 cards). I'm sure that once the newer cards are hacked and these hacked cards fall into the hands of signal stealers, Directv will become more offensive minded again.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Everyone thinks this is due to the EFF's hard work. As much as I have great respect for the EFF and honor thier initiatives, this deceision was not due to thier hard work.
DirecTV swapped out thier P3 cards and shut down mass piracy in April. They have sued over 24000 people. With piracy down to 0 for them, they will have a hard time convincing courts since thier arguments are not nearly as strong without all of those web sites hawking hacked cards. I think this agreement to be a "kinder and gentler DirecTV " is purely due to them cleaning up the stream, and not the hard work of the EFF. If there were still 1000s of hacked cards out there, rest assured, DirecTV would continue its extortion campaign.
DTV has recently shut down the HU stream, the only hackable signal thus killing the demand for these equipment. This PR throwing a meanless bone, in reality it is no longer a significant concern for them anymore.
Why shouldn't they investigate? It is surely within their rights to see if they can stop a policy that they believe is hurting their business. Whether or not they have a case is another matter, but just because they believe in limiting the rights of others does not mean they don't get the same rights as everyone else.
_____
Thank you.
In the military you are held accountable for what your subordinates do. Unless they make a conscious, conspiratorial effort to keep you out of the loop, you are presumed to know what they are doing. In other words, 999 out of 1000 cases, a noncom or officer is presumed to know exactly what they are doing. Therefore they are held responsible if they are violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Unlike the civilian world, in the military world, the buck stops with whoever is in charge where the violation was occurring, and damage can spill over into higher ranking personnel.
The only way to stop stuff like this is to apply that standard to the civilian business world on criminal activity. Don't punish the stockholders by fining the company because Mr. Big Rich White CEO claims he didn't know what was going on. Bullshit, he was hired specifically to know what at a minimum his underlings were doing. Can you imagine the fallout of an army major saying "gee Mr. JAG Officer, I had no idea that lieutenant smith was killing civilians while we were occupying this village." The JAG would laugh his ass off as military police escorted at least the lt. and probably the major too off to a brig.
Personal responsibility is out of style in America today. We want power, but so many don't want the responsibilities that come with it. Look at the female general who is trying to cry like a little girl that she "didn't know that the abuse was going on in Abu Ghraib." Bullshit. With a command that small in such tight quarters you'd have to know. Let the DirecTV executives get hit directly instead of the company and that will scare off anyone that would follow in their footsteps.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
So... if DirecTV sues me for interception and theft of their broadcast signal, can I countersue them for trespassing?
After all, their signal is entering my property without permission.
OK, so maybe that's a bit far-fetched. Nonetheless, their signal is broadcast, I cannot help but intercept it. Anytime I stand outside, their signal is bombarding my body. Why should it be illegal for me to interpret a signal that I am receiving?
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
I've debated getting one to screw around with. No real reason, just because I think smart cards are neat. We have them on our university IDs for holding money and to ID ourselves to some kinds of computers (like Sunblades). I think it's an interesting technology, so I've debated getting a reader/writer and a couple of cards to mess with.
Also if I were going to do access control for anything, smart card technology would be the first place I'd look. It is FAR more secure than something like magnetic stripe and allegedly more reliable. If I had a bussiness that needed key-type access restrictions to rooms or computers or the like, I'd probably try and do it with smartcards.
And before someone asks, I have cable so I'm wouldn't even able to intercept the DirectTV signal without other hardware.
I'm usually an anti-big-business super-liberal type, but I don't mind this at all.
Card hackers piss me off. DirecTV service is great. It's worth paying for. You get a hell of a lot more than your average cable service for the same price in both volume of channels and quality of picture.
If you don't want to pay for TV, don't watch it. You'll be better off anyway.
The main problem w/ a suit like this is that it doesn't matter who is legally correct. Direct/RIAA just assume that they can afford the frivolous suit and you can't. That you'll panic a fold. And this is true in most cases. However, if you can front the money, and win I have a suggestion on how you can make Direct/RIAA pay for your litigation costs in the end (i.e. make the court work as a loser-pays system), assuming you're in Federal court.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) allow for you to make a settlement offer, and if rejected the rejector may have to pay your legal fees.
Rule 68. Offer of Judgment
At any time more than 10 days before the trial begins, a party defending against a claim may serve upon the adverse party an offer to allow judgment to be taken against the defending party for the money or property or to the effect specified in the offer, with costs then accrued. If within 10 days after the service of the offer the adverse party serves written notice that the offer is accepted, either party may then file the offer and notice of acceptance together with proof of service thereof and thereupon the clerk shall enter judgment. An offer not accepted shall be deemed withdrawn and evidence thereof is not admissible except in a proceeding to determine costs. If the judgment finally obtained by the offeree is not more favorable than the offer, the offeree must pay the costs incurred after the making of the offer . The fact that an offer is made but not accepted does not preclude a subsequent offer. When the liability of one party to another has been determined by verdict or order or judgment, but the amount or extent of the liability remains to be determined by further proceedings, the party adjudged liable may make an offer of judgment, which shall have the same effect as an offer made before trial if it is served within a reasonable time not less than 10 days prior to the commencement of hearings to determine the amount or extent of liability. (emphasis added)
So, as soon as you get the "we're suing" papers, and you are completely, "no F'ing way" innocent make a Offer in Judgment of $1. If Direct/RIAA takes the $1 offer, your legal worries are over. If they don't take the offer, you go to trial knowing that if you win, Direct/RIAA must pay your legal fees (from the offer forward).
Now you pay up front while they sue you and it takes your time, but ultimately you get the cash back (provided you win).
LOL - they 'shut down' F & H cards. They are about done with HU, Now they have P4s... and people are still watching free TV. All DTV is doing is bolstering the card programmer market.
Of course they stopped. DTV killed of the HU cards a couple months ago. The 'unloopers' (those things DTV was suing everyone over - they were used to get into the HU card to program it) are now useless since the current DTV card is unaffected by them. Nice spin though, if you didn't know better you might actually believe the EFF accomplished something.
I personally find it difficult to draw any real compairson between DirecTV and RIAA, other than the fact they sue their users.
There is a BIG difference here between the two. Stealing music is one thing. You actively go to a website or P2P network specifically to find a particular song/album, and then actively download it. In other words, its a pull.
Getting DirecTV is, ultimately no different than getting your local channels via the old rabbit ears. DirecTV beams that signal with a VERY wide footprint to the earth, using RF. Its really silly to tell someone that they are not allowd to recieve a RF signal that is being sent directly to your house.
They are using regulations that were put up to prevent cable theft (again, not the same thing as simply recieving RF signals from an orbiting satellite) to ensure a revenue stream. Satellite is a push, not a pull. That data is pushed directly to your property, you dont pull it to you.
Cable theft is again different as well, as you plug a device directly to the cable company's property (the cable line) and actively pull data from their equipment to your television.
Now, if the wanted to sue someone, they could base it on a breech of contract for using a non-directTV provided card, or for opening the case of the reciever, or something of that nature (which would require writing such language into the contract, but suing somenone for using equipment that they purchased, not leased, to recieve a signal that is already being pushed to their house is ludicrous.
God bless the EFF.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Some progress has been made, but not nearly enough. DirecTV will still threaten people for mere possession of devices, and you're at their mercy as to what constitutes "sufficient evidence" that you didn't steal their signal.
... use their devices for signal theft ...
:-)
This whole business of "signal theft" is getting out of hand. The signal was theirs only as long as it was in their circuits, as it could be said that the electrons in their equipment are their personal property.
But the electromagnetic waves induced in space by their transmitters, how the hell can they be property? OK, maybe they induce the near-field boundary disturbance directly, but beyond that the wave is self-inducing and self-propagating.
If the EM signal that reaches my house is indeed their property, what the hell is it doing entering my property without my permission? If they have the right to sue for signal theft, then I have the right to sue for trespass.
It just goes to show that the law is a real ass when it comes to technology. "Signal theft" and "music piracy" both rank among the top legal idiocies of the modern age.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
It's your fault if you take the word of someone suing you. I'm sorry, I don't think what DirectTV is doing is right (should be illegal, IMHO, to bring about lawsuits if you have no evidence supporting your claims), but the first thing you should do if sued is contact a lawyer. You can countersue for legal fees if their case is weak enough (IANAL, i don't know the specific requirements). Settling w/out first talking to a lawyer is a recipe for letting yourself be fucked, so don't do it. I can't imagine people who are spending disposable income on these devices don't have the cash to get a tiny bit of legal advice before signing a settlement agreement, and I have very little sympathy for people who let themselves get bullied around b/c they didn't know or even try and find out if they weren't breaking the law.
Hypothetically, if I AM using the equipment to pirate the signal and I get sued, how can I get in on this "legitimate use" gravy train?
DirecTV, aka DAVE, will continue their witchhunt until it is no longer a viable source of revenue. That includes the toll they incur for any negative press on their actions.
Not that we are totally without recourse. I took great joy in personally killing a six-digit contract that Hughes Network Systems was virtually guaranteed to win because of their sister divison's actions. The salesperson probably has a picture of me on his dartboard thanks to the smirk I wore when I told him the fate of the deal he thought was a slam dunk.
Supporting the ACLU and the EFF is all well and good, but derailing the money train is a far more effective tool for getting a company's attention. It also feels pretty good, too.
For example, the fact that people like you apparently don't understand the difference between homicide and wrongful death, or the difference between criminal and civil proceedings and judgements, but feel obligated to talk about them anyway because you were allowed to be a third party participant via CourtTV. Maybe you should take a basic Civics class before you try to analyze a court system you are obviously 100% clueless about. Just a thought...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
DirecTV had already been told by the courts dozens of times that it needed evidence of actual interception, not just evidence of possession. So it isn't giving up anything by making the agreement with the EFF. We'll just have to see whether it changes its intimidating, aggressive, accusatory collection practices.
They already made their money. They used their size to ream the pockets of thousands of people for way more than they ever would have made, even if the users HAD been paying for service. They've nearly completed the rollout of their latest SmartCard, which has no public hacks available for it, and have all but eliminated the old streams, leaving no hacking left to do at this point for the average joe. They have absolutely nothing to lose by pulling this PR stunt, because they're DONE. Game Over. Dave Wins.
Oh, now I have to provide "sufficient evidence" that I'm not guilty? Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Shouldn't the burden of proof be on their side?
Basically, the bully is going to try to be a little nicer.
Yep, that's what it sounds like.
How about sending this in reply:
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Certain places have drafted laws to make abuse of the legal system a criminal and civil offence, where damages can be levied against a plaintiff producing bogus or groundless claims. In fact, this should be one of the first things that should cross the defandant's minds when consulting with their lawyer - while it won't always be successful, there is a significant change that it will work, especially when combined with existing rulings from other judges stating that the claims were illegitimate.