Judge orders OJ to pay
 

...$25,000.00 for stealing TV signals.

Link? Was this for pirated satellite? Pretty dam expensive fine. I think up here the most you can get is $5K. And no one ever gets charged with that. Unless they are stealing cable by splicing into the lines.

...pirated dtv cards [such memories]

If General Instruments hadn't been so piggy with licensing there would be little satellite piracy these days :upsidedow
Dish Network customers will soon be swapping out their cards for a new encryption system as has been Bell Express Vu customers (Canada version of Dishnetwork, same equipment/encryption method). A simple .bin file available freely on the internet allows perfectly legal cheap equipment to receive all of their programming except the porn which has already switched over to the new encryption.

Now that I have Google News'd this, O.J. will beat this in court if it's worth it to him to fight it (unless he had hacked satellite cards on the property).

The news reports mistakenly declare that posession of the "bootloaders" siezed in the raid on his house in 2001 are illegal. This is not true. They are not illegal or your bank that issues you your debit card is committing a crime, as well as anyone who issues you any card with a magnetic stripe on it. It is only illegal to use them to alter a smartcard to engage in illegal activities. In all of the articles I've read so far on this they merely say the devices were on his property. Nowhere have I read he possessed altered smartcards in or for a satellite system.

DirectTV successfully subpoenaed customer lists of people who purchased card writers while claiming the only use of them is to steal their signal and convincing techo-illiterate judges. Security companies have successfully defended themselves in these sweeping lawsuits, but Joe Hobbiest/Developer will pay $25K unless he wants to pay more to fight it.

It's little different than saying that you have a p2p program on your computer and the only use of it is to steal music and movies and although we have no proof whatsoever that you ever did so you must pay $25K.

I think the fine is way too much.

So how much should the fine be for having something that's not illegal on your property and no evidence of a crime?

http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlf...irating%20case

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1688282005

http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurre...name=oj727.htm

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...l=la-tot-promo

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/cgi-b...244926242&fa=1

Since when did they start raiding people's homes for pirated satellite? Is this a new trend?

I know they like to hit the dealers whenever they can, the guys selling the equipment, but I've never heard of someone getting nailed yet for personal use.

edit: article says he was raided in 2001. Freaky.

They haven't (AFIK) raided home in the US strictly for posessing devices alleged for personal use that might be used for satellite piracy.http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/09/St...rated_si.shtml

But what they have been doing for several years is filing civil suit against 10's of thousands of people who bought anything that might be used to steal their signal. Most people pay them off because as their lawyers rightfully suggest, it is cheaper.

There is much info here if anyone is truely interested in what is actually going on:

http://www.directvdefense.org/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/07...ocent_techies/