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. "

Comments

Lawsuit!

[Mz6]

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.

Re:Lawsuit!

[rnicey]

Bit fuddy of you.

You don't have to travel out of state if you don't want to. What jurisdiction does an out of state court have over you? You have a couple of options.

a) Mail in a motion to dismiss and ask that because of it's trivial nature you'd like to participate over the phone. It doesn't take a lawyer to fill out that form in most states.

b) If (a) fails, or if you can't be bothered travelling to another state let them get their judgement. It's a worthless piece of paper, they have to come to your state to collect and they need to go before a local judge to enforce an out of state order. Thats when you can defend yourself much better.

For example I just had somebody sue me in CA and the FL judge wiped his arse with it. Doesn't even touch your credit either.

Let them get on a plane and come to you. Chances are they won't bother.

Bottom line. A good lawyer would have no problems with a suit like this.

miscarriage?

[ack154]

Thanks to the EFF for stopping this horrible miscarriage of the legal system.

I had to look this one up:

miscarriage - (mskrj, ms-kr-) n.

1. The premature expulsion of a nonviable fetus from the uterus. Also called spontaneous abortion.
2. 1. Bad administration; mismanagement. 2. A failure of administration or management: a miscarriage of justice.

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:

satellite television giant DirecTV has agreed to modify its nationwide campaign against signal piracy in order to reduce threats and lawsuits against innocent users of smart card technology

So... should i go with Dish Network

[strictnein]

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?

What are legitimate uses

[Matt2k]

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?

Stopping such nonsense

[earthforce_1]

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.

Quite the coincidence, eh?

[javab0y]

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.

not a coincident

[supergwiz]

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.

There really is only one way to stop this

[ShatteredDream]

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.

Re:A step in the right direction, but...

[XMyth]

The problem is whether or not they actually investigate. In the past DTV's methods of investigation is

1. Send out extortion letters (170,000 of these mind you) demanding ~ $3500 settlement or $10,000 lawsuit.
2. X% of letters result in settlement of $3500. Lets say 5% settled.
3. $2,975,000 (minus overhead) PROFIT!

It's still guilty until proven innocent...

[yeremein]

It's still guilty until proven innocent. The only thing that's changed is that DirecTV says they'll supposedly listen to claims of innocence rather than plugging their ears and humming "la, la, I can't hear you, pirate".

... DirecTV will, however, continue to investigate purchasers of devices that are often primarily designed for satellite signal interception, nicknamed "bootloaders" and "unloopers."

DirecTV also agreed to change its pre-lawsuit demand letters to explain in detail how innocent recipients can get DirecTV to drop their cases. The company also promised that it will investigate every substantive claim of innocence it receives. If purchasers provide sufficient evidence demonstrating that they did not use their devices for signal theft, DirecTV will dismiss their cases.

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.