Direct TV gunning for greenbacks
We've all heard about con artists who make a habit of slipping on icy sidewalks, then threatening to sue the property owner. In fact, I once met an American "professional protester" who travels to demonstrations where there might be violence, hoping to become the victim of police brutality and claim some compensation. He says he makes his living this way.
Some companies seem to have taken this tactic up to an industrial scale. Direct TV is the
Fox Entertainment/ News Corp.-owned provider of satellite television service to almost 14 million customers in the U.S. - the ones who get it legally.
Apparently, there are also some pirates out there.
How many? According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Direct TV has now sent an estimated 170,000 "cease-and-desist letters" to people who are suspected of pirating their satellite signals. Typically, they're folks who bought the receiver but "forgot" to order programming, or downgraded their programming choices in a suspicious manner.
The letters, samples of which are posted online at Direct TVdefense.org, give recipients the cheery news that "your purchase, possession or use of signal theft equipment to gain unauthorized access to Direct TV's satellite television programming subjects you to statutory damages of up to ,000 per violation."
But wait, there's more! "Your involvement in modifying devices ... increases potential statutory damages to 0,000.”
The letter does offer a ray of hope. Direct TV will "amicably resolve this matter" and "forego litigation" in return for the three C's: An act of Contrition and promise to sin no more, turning over all the contraband Cards, and Cash, usually ,500 US.
A rather daunting piece of correspondence showing up in the mailbox of a Good Ol' Boy who wuz just tryin' to watch the NFL for free!
While pirating TV signals is definitely illegal and wrong, it's easy to understand why people would try to do it. Direct TV's self-described "most popular programming package," called Home Choice, costs .99 US a month, and that's just for one TV set. Many people opt for more channels, additional gear such as personal video recorders and culturally enhancing experiences such as Playboy TV. Put it all together and it could easily come to more than 0 US a month.
On the other hand, our e-mail in-boxes are littered with those tempting "Free TV for Life" spam messages. What harm could it do to check them out? I found a company in Oakville, whose website (dssdishdoctor.com) offers devices for reprogramming the smart cards used by Direct TV.
They even advertise a "valid (card), complete with cam id and ready for Direct TV viewing" for 9 plus tax. However, a call to their 1-800 number produced some evasive responses. "Er, no, we don't sell unloopers (devices to repair and reprogram satellite dish cards) any more. We sell laptops. Yeah, we do need to update our website."
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that last month, Direct TV filed a lawsuit against "19 Canadian citizens and five of their businesses that it believes were participating in a scheme to activate fraudulent Direct TV accounts."
The defendants, mainly from the Kitchener-Waterloo area, are accused of creating a complex network of companies and websites used to provide bogus U.S. addresses and other false information to establish Direct TV accounts, "which were then used to illegally activate programming for individuals, who then paid the defendants to receive Direct TV programming without authorization by or proper payment to Direct TV.”
That's lawyer talk for why they're seeking damages in excess of million.
So, be warned. Buying signal-theft gear from a piracy site can be the beginning of a legal hell, according to EFF staff attorney Jason Schultz.
Schultz says Direct TV was clever in finding suspects. They first sued some of most notorious and obvious piracy gear vendors such as piratesden.com. They went easy on the bad guys, provided they'd turn over their customer lists, which of course they did. These provided the file for the boilerplate cease-and-desist letters.
Schulz says there is a lot of money to be made from threatening to sue people. Multiply 170,000 letters by ,500 and you get a whopping 5 million US.
Even if half the suspects go on the lam or declare bankruptcy, there's good money to be made in suing. So good, in fact, that Direct TV has opened a call centre to take frantic calls and rake in the cash.
If you decide to fight them in court, good luck. Schultz says defence arguments are pretty hard to come by, and to date, nobody has won a countersuit even though "this could be considered a form of extortion under US racketeering laws."
Direct TV can't legally sell its service in Canada, though some sneaky folks do get it on the "grey market" by providing a U.S. mailing address. Canadians seem to crave this programming even if the CRTC doesn't want us to have it. We're supposed to be happy with Bell ExpressVu and StarChoice.
Other companies are also using the "sue 'em all" approach.
Games maker Tecmo sued the operators of Ninjahacker.net for making unauthorized changes to one of the company's "Dead or Alive" Xbox game programs.
The hack involved changing the game characters to remake them into, among other things, naked females. While the main targets of the Tecmo lawsuit are Mike Greiling of Eden Prairie, Minn. and Will Glynn from Davie, Fla., it also names up to 100 "John Doe's" - anonymous users of the website. Don't bother looking up ninjahacker.net, it's been replaced with an appeal for donations to a legal defence fund.
So, if you have the high-tech equivalent of an icy sidewalk connected to your TV or inside your computer, you're a lawsuit waiting to happen.
It's getting awfully cheap, and apparently quite profitable, to whip out an impressive cease-and-desist letter and wait for the money to roll in.
All in the interest of protecting your company's rights, of course.
Direct TV News |
Direct TV Articles
|
