# TV News Story - Signal Piracy



## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

Last night's local news on KUTV (CBS affiliate in Salt Lake) had a story about Directv's crackdown on signal piracy. Here is a trascript from it:

Newsroom:

Leann Lobb: “Directv says it is plagued by thieves, and the company is striking back.”

Mark Koelbel: “Now Directv offers a lot of channels by satellite, and some companies are illegally selling access to that programming. Rod Decker has more on this new crackdown.”

RCWilley Furniture & Electronics Store (big seller of Directv in the area):

Rod Decker: “These RC Willey TV’s are tuned to Directv. For about $30 a month you get 130 channels, and if you pay extra, you can get movie services, pay-per-view, and up to fourteen NFL games every Sunday. The programming comes by satellite and thieves are stealing it.

When you subscribe to Directv, you get a decoder like this (holding up an RCA receiver), that has a slot here, where you insert an electronic card that controls what programming you can get. Some people use pirated cards and steal signal without paying for it.

The phony cards are available on the Internet, but now Directv has sued some of the phony card makers, gotten their business records, and found out who is using the counterfeit cards. Now, lawyer Len Bronson is suing Utahns who use counterfeit cards." 

Len Bronson: “We want to be fair to the end user as well, but we need to send a message that they are stealing signal and we won’t put up with it.”

Rod Decker: “Bronson has already filed federal court suits against four Utahns and he plans to file a dozen more suits next week. Directv has sent letters to other suspected signal stealers telling them to stop it and pay for what they’ve used. Rod Decker, 2News.”


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2002)

This story will just keep repeating itself until DTV/Dish/Expressvu move to a secure platform like DCII.

How many times can these guy's yell "Fire" before the taxpayer says "Stop wasting our taxpayer money tying up law enforcement and the courts: Get real! Get secure!"


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## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

You make it sound like it is their fault they are being stolen from. Even if there was no real security and there was a screen display that said "This is private signal, it is against the law to steal this signal", they would be legally in the right,and those who steal it would be a guilty as if they had the highest security protection out there. Those who are stealing th signal and get caught are wasting the taxpayers money, not the DBS providers


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## mjz (Jul 27, 2002)

I hear the DCII has been compromised.


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## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

I just plain can't understand people who steal signal. Is the thrill of getting free DBS worth the possible penalty? Just pay for it for hell's sake. I guess some people get off on being thieves.


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## Atomic Buffalo (Sep 17, 2002)

Some people find it easy to steal something that's cheap and not a physical object. People copy CDs and download MP3s too.

When pirates start landing in jail, people will stop stealing signal. Until then, feh.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2002)

Macom and GI manufactured 1.9 million Videocipher II decoders between 1986 and 1990. Of these only 500,000 were every activated.

In 1993, GI offered a free upgrade to VC II+ for all those who sent in VC II boards with the seals intact. 300,000 were returned.


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## CanOBeans (Sep 24, 2002)

Directv is in my opinion a great service......and I'm willing to pay for it.......

If everyone stole.........there would be no directv....and then what would we do?


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## lee635 (Apr 17, 2002)

> _Originally posted by gcutler _
> *You make it sound like it is their fault they are being stolen from. Even if there was no real security and there was a screen display that said "This is private signal, it is against the law to steal this signal", they would be legally in the right,and those who steal it would be a guilty as if they had the highest security protection out there. Those who are stealing th signal and get caught are wasting the taxpayers money, not the DBS providers *


I'm not trying to pick a fight but I thought that the legal protections arise when a provider encrypts the signal. That is, it is in fact perfectly legal to set up a bud or dbs system in your backyard and pick up in-the-clear signals. For example, it would be legal for someone to take their handy dandy DVB receiver and tune into the E* barker channels (why anyone would do that is beyond me), the D* pay-per view promo channels, and even the E* music channels, and any other non-encrytped transmissions. Even if a crawl line at the bottom of the screen said you cannot watch this channel without authorization, if it's ITC, it's fair game.


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## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

You may be right in this situation. What does the law specifically say? I wasn't thinking of the Passiveness of being Beamed upon by the satellite. I was trying to use the analogy of the locked door vs unlocked door not having anything to do with legality in general. If I lock my front door or don't lock my front door, if you enter the door to steal my furniture out of my house, it is still theft. Now it might not be breaking and entering if the door is unlocked, but it is still tresspassing under both circumstances. The original poster was saying that bad encryption was the source of the piracy problem, not the people stealing the signal in the first place.


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