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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:
While I guess it's a step in the right direction, reading this part just drives me nuts:
"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."
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.
Ahh, thanks.
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?
Is everyone forgetting that DirecTV has effectively shut down the "pirates" (for now) by phasing out the last of the "hackable" smart cards? Between that and their soaring subscriber base (especially when compared to cable), it's no longer cost effective for them to continue with these tactics, nor is it worth the negative publicity. I'm all for the EFF, but if the RIAA found a way to stop 99.9% of file sharing, they'd drop their lawsuits too. Hate them all you want, but they are only fighting a perceived threat, using what they consider to be a deterent. If there's nothing left to deter, they aren't going to spend the money on it.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Directly from the article:
"If purchasers provide sufficient evidence demonstrating that they did not use their devices for signal theft, DirecTV will dismiss their cases. EFF and CIS will monitor reports of this process to confirm that innocent device purchasers are having their cases dismissed."
So you are STILL guilty until proven innocent. This saga is not over yet.
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.
But bootloaders and unloopers exist solely for the purpose of unscrambling satellite signals.
Arguments about "if the signal reaches my house I should be able to use it" aside, this is how the law stands, and that's who they should be after.
It's like the diffence between an xbox mod with a hardcoded version of a hacked MS bios vs doing it yourself with a blank EEPROM. The first is an infringement if it ships out with MS's IP (which is why all current mods ship out blank, or with cromwell), the second is just a stock part you can get at any decent electronics shop.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
No, unloopers exist for repairing smartcards. Check out SDLOGIC's equipment. They sell unloopers for purely legitimate purposes yet DTV is intending to sue them.
Bootloaders as well have legitimate uses....they can be used for retrieving critical data off physically damaged smartcards.
If the wording of the EFF's statement is held true, and DTV actually INVESTIGATES these purchases rather than carpet bombing the customer lists with extortion letters, then it will be what we've wanted since the beginning. This is only half.
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.
Does evidence that you do use your smart card programming interface/hardware for legitimate purposes count towards the not-well-defined "sufficient" amount of evidence "demonstrating that [you] did not use [your] devices for signal theft"? It's the same old logical fallacy of trying to prove a negative - what evidence do they expect supports the assertion that you did not try to program cards for part of a signal-theft scheme?
They're not very clear on this - though I (generously) presume there's some more practical definition somewhere in the process, . . . but I still think the burden of proof to even start this kind of proceeding should be on the accuser - show some evidence that each potential defendant did commit the crime. It seems that this still leaves plenty of room for harrassing innocent geeks who happen to work for companies who, for example, program industrial security systems, which could have included me a few years ago.
Well, actually the government didn't make any such declaration - if you recall, the government was arguing very strenuously that he was, in fact, guilty. In the criminal case, a jury of his peers determined that he was not guilty according to the standards used to decide guilt in criminal cases, and the government - and the rest of us, for that matter - are bound to respect. Now, in murder cases, the government brings charges on behalf of the dead person - it has to be that way, since they're not around to press charges any more. But that doesn't mean the victims were the only ones harmed by the murder - others who have been harmed, but not criminally victimized, can sue in civil court to recover the damages they have suffered. So the state prosecutes criminally on behalf of the victims, and the families sue on their own behalf, based on the idea that they have been harmed by the actions of the accused - specifically, they were deprived of family members. And double jeopardy doesn't apply the way you might think in such cases - you can be sued for as many times as there are people to bring claims of damage against you, although each person who has been harmed may only sue you once. But if you murder twenty people, you can expect dozens and dozens of lawsuits from their family members, each one claiming you've harmed them.
As well, you can be tried more than once for the same act, if that same act encompasses more than one offense. Suppose I intend to kidnap you and hold you for ransom, but as I grab you off the street, I handle you too roughly, and you die. Even though there's but a single act that I performed, I can be charged with any or all of several offenses - murder, attempted kidnapping, assault and battery, and so forth. And charging me with all of those things, and even trying me seperately for them, doesn't violate double jeopardy. Finally, concurrent or subsequent state and federal prosecutions don't violate double jeopardy - so sez the Supreme Court - on the theory that the federal government and state government are both sovereigns, and both have an interest in prosecution. This is how the federal government was able to prosecute the police in the Rodney King affair, despite the fact that they had been acquitted in state court - A) dual sovereignty, and; B) they were charged in federal court with a different offense arising from the same act, namely depriving King of his civil rights, which is a crime under federal law.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.