DirecTV Sues 850 Floridians
 

:1orglaugh Anyone here pirate their satellite feeds?


850 in Florida Accused of Piracy by DirecTV

OCALA -- About 850 people are being sued in Florida by a satellite television provider that's accusing them of buying devices to pirate the company's signal.

DirecTV has sued more than 11,000 people nationwide charging them with using smart cards and illegal ``black boxes'' to receive the company's satellite TV service without paying the monthly fee.

The suits were filed in the Middle District of Florida, which stretches from Jacksonville to Fort Myers, and includes Tampa, St. Petersburg and Orlando.

The company is suing people who bought descrambling equipment from an Indiana-based supplier. DirecTV obtained customer records when police raided the distributor two years ago, Mercer said.

``This has been a problem for the industry for some time,'' said Robert Mercer, director of public relations for DirecTV.

``We've historically targeted more of the upstream guys _ code writers, distributors. ... We're now targeting every link in the chain.''

The satellite company first sends a letter asking the suspected viewer to surrender the device, sign an agreement and pay $3,500 as compensation for past conduct. If that doesn't work, DirecTV takes the matter to court.

David Thompson, of Belleview, is one of the people being sued by DirecTV. He said Wednesday he never received a letter from DirecTV, and learned about the company's lawsuit against him when he was served in the case. He declined to comment further.

Ocala lawyer Paul Guilfoil, who represents Thompson, said DirecTV appears to be trying to send a message by suing users of descrambling equipment.

``It seems to be they're trying to get a lot of publicity out there, so people won't deal with the people who sell them,'' Guilfoil said.

The company has sent out about 70,000 to 80,000 letters nationwide and taken legal action against 11,800 people.

Good. They are thieves, and should be prosecuted.

:1orglaugh

this has been coming for a long time, Dtv even sends extortion letters for people to pay up and send in their equipment

classic...lol

Haha.. I had a couple pirated DTV boxes when I lived in Florida. One for me, my sister, and my mother :)

when will people learn....


















you buy that stuff from other countries

It's insane that it can be illegal to decode signals being beamed into your own house. If you transmit something all over the world, and it enters my property, I should have the right to

1) Charge you for beaming your signal across my property
2) Decode your signal and do whatever the fuck I want with it.

Well it is theft of service. They can't seem to stay ahead of the hacks that keep getting the programming for free so they decided to take it to court.

Seems like the entire country is sue happy though. Its getting sickening.

About 4-5 years ago I bought a descrambler for my little brother who was 13 or so at the time. He begged me cause he didnt have a cc and such . Ok no prob. About 3 years later the company we bough them from got sued and they settled but they gave up their customer list (sound familiar?) So i got a letter, calls and shit saying to pay up 3k or they gonna come after me and so on.

Long story short nothing happened but threat after threat till it stopped

Well it sounds nice but you own the property not signals in the air. You need a dish pointed at the sky to bring the signal into your home. Charging them would be like trying to charge a radio station for sending a signal through your property.

this is exactly what dtv does and has been doing for the past 2-3yrs....

# 1 rule ( if you gonna deal with this shit) is never use real names and addresses when ordering shit like this, as we have witnessed in the last couple days here...too many seell outs trying to save there own skin...anybody ever hear of EQ?

:2 cents:

So what? Now I am not allowed to build a dish and a decoder, because YOU want to send signals across my property and only want me to be able to decode them with your permission?

That's clearly just another absurdity which the brainwashed masses have forgotten to question.

Your kidding right? I am not brainwashed. You don't own air waves, radio waves, or any waves in the air. The antenna or in this case the dish is pulling them from the sky. Not your property.

The courts have ruled that it's ok for people to use spyware to steal our traffic because it's being done on the computer of the person seeing the webpage.

Why is that different here?

If it's ok for spyware companies to hijack traffic and copyright protected content that they don't own, why is it illegal for someone to hijack a video signal at their house?

NO, that's misleading. The signal is beamed all over my land, into my house, across my lawn, etc. My dish, if I had one, doesn't pull the signal out of anywhere -- it just gets bombarded by the signal, like any other antenna. Their signal is invading my property without my permission and they want to get paid to trespass!

I'm going to decode some passwords to your site so I don't have to pay for it. You're allowing access to your site from all over the world. If I click to it, it's on my property (my computer). I'll decode it and do whatever the fuck I want with it.

well when dealing with cable the FCC took care of us pretty good :thumbsup It is perfectly legal to own a cable descrambler.. aslong as it's not stolen properity.. the cable company can't do a damn thing too you aslong as you pay for their basic service...

Now direcTV and Dishnetwork are a little diffrent being they fall under diffrent FCC regulations.. They have a lot more control over their product..

That is exactly what the courts have ruled when it comes to spyware programs.

They are allowed to change your content, steal your links, do anything they want because it is on the computer of the person viewing it.

That's exactly why I'm going to do it! Now nobody go crying because I'm getting your porn for free.

They own the beam. They put the satellites in the sky (not cheap ;)) they have every right to defend against the hijacking of there signal.

The signal is not just bouncing off your house. You need to pull it in with a dish. You AIM the dish at one of the satellites.

You can pull the signal in all you want.

You just can't decode it and view the intellectual property contained within.

There's are two subtle differences:

1). Since DirectTv broadcasts it content, it costs them the same amount if one person or one million people are using their services. In the case of a paysite, bandwidth and server load is proportional to the number of users.

2). Again since DirectTv signals are broadcast, decoding the signal would take place on the end users property and exclusively use the end users equipment. In the case of a paysite, there is no way to circumvent the access controls without interacting with the remote server.

That being said, if you're clever enough to get around the access controls of a porn website, more power to you. The porn site shouldn't sue you, they should develop better security.

The signal IS bouncing off your house, your car, your lawn, and even your body. The dish only makes collecting the signal easier.

anyone have a valid bin?

:Graucho

:1orglaugh

That like saying..

The FBI transfers information over public backbones, So what If i gained enterence into the FBI mainframe and deleted everything.. Just because they put a password there, doesnt meen I cant gain access, afterall its accessable over the internet which is public.

and cops can interecept your cell phone signals too :)

nevermind.. someone addressed it

cool,
you came to my comnputer over the Internet,
your cock seduced me so...
1) let me play with your cock, maske pics, post them on GFY

2) get sued by me

what is your choice, Buff?
;-)))))

My website is on a server that you don't own. That's different. If you connect to my server and take my content, that's different from me beaming my contact to your computer.

A better comparison would be if I emailed all my content to you in encoded form and then told you if you wanted to view it, you had to pay me. If you decode it yourself, it's my own fault.

Got it?

You can play with my cock as long as you make me cum, Serge. You know that.

If they were stupid enough to give out their name and address and probably their credit card info to buy that stuff, then they deserve the lawsuits. Everyone around here pays CASH.

DirecTV broadcasts are line of sight. The signal is NOT always bouncing off your car, your lawn or your body. This is not Analog AM radio this is digital.

I guess if you emphasize "always" in that sentence, I'd agree. It doesn't take much to block most of the signal. But it is usually peppering your property, unless clouds are blocking it first. DirectTV peppers your head with its signals when you step out the door. The digital or analog issue doesn't really make a diff...people send analog signals via satellite, and digital signals using FM and AM. It's all radio signals, just going over different frequencies, using different encoding algorithms, and different transmission technologies.

The ethics of decoding the signal without payment is another issue, and I'll stay out of that discussion, but the technical details are pretty clear; the signal is being broadcast places whether there's a dish there or not.

Rain only hits my house, car, lawn and body when its raining also. But just like the satellite signal I don't have to do anything special to "pull" the rain like you implied a satellite dish does with the DirectTv signal.

Ok I have not been very clear in what I am trying to convey.

The DirecTV signal is a line of site signal. Some people can not even pick up a signal or get the service. For those that can get the service you need to be VERY precise when lining up your dish with the satellite. You are not using a wave that has bounced off someone elses house you are pointing your dish at the ACTUAL satellite.

I will admit I do not know the details about what waves are bouncing around and where if you are in plain site of one of the 5 DirectV satellites, but to capture the signal it does take effort and you are not using a signal that is just randomly bouncing around. The effort to get the signal and decode it is theft. You can get as technical as you want but you are NOT utilizing a wave bouncing off a house or anywhere else that is "your property". You need to be in the line of site. You then need to decode the signal. That is theft.

To say that the waves bouncing around your property make it yours if you can crack it is insane. You cant pull a signal from pointing your dish at a tree in your yard. It wont work.

Lets see the satellites are up in the sky (granted a particular part of the sky) but unless you live somewhere pretty shitty the sky is always line of sight.

If you talk loud enough that I can hear you on my property is it stealing to listen to your conversation? Would it be stealing if you spoke in an uncommon language and I had to use a translation dictionary?

actuallyt they arent stealing anything, they are just "testing"

anyone have a 3M handy?

:winkwink:

you DO have that right. they will loose in court.

no it's not. if it's beamed onto your property you have the RIGHT to decode it.

any use of the signal for commerical purposes would be illegial, but private home use wouldn't be.

exactly.

Do you even have a dish? If there are trees in the wrong spot you cant pick up the satellite signal. They have 5 satellites and you need a clear unobstructed view of one of them (depending on where you live) in the sky. You are utilizing the waves coming directly from the satellite not from a bounced wave.

My point is any "stray"waves can not be utilized. The wave is NOT your property that was the original argument.

:1orglaugh

its funny cause its true lol

once again you're wrong.

the signals are beamed onto your property. there' nothing illegial about owning a satelitte dish and pointing it wherever you want on your property.

next you're going to tell me it's illegial to listen to your neighbors have a screaming arguement and that you have to turn on your dishwasher every time they start screaming to block it out.

you sir - are an idiot.

Then why is DirectTV suing and winning against people who are doing what you say is legal. Why do they bother encoding it?

apples and oranges

yes and no. they can legally change links, but they can't legally alter any trademarked link for any commerical purpose.

thus they can change links, but only those links from websites that don't have a trademark on their url, as any attempt to change a trademarked link would be infringement on trademark if used for any competing commerical revenue purposes.

that's like saying I can't legally LOOK at a satilitte with my telescope

Why an I an idiot? You dont own the signal. In order to pull the signal you need to have an unobstructed view of the Directv satellite. The dish then brings in the signal and your box and software decodes it. The Directv system can not work without a direct line of site of one of there satellites.

Who cares, the new P5 cards are gonna kill pirating for a while, sine they are taking out the hu stream in a few months