What’s the deal with the bootleg (illegal?) cable tv boxes offered in the back of magazines like Popular Science and Pop Mechanics? Do they work as advertised, and more importantly, can the cable company catch you and charge you with theft of service?
Well, they are ILLEGAL. That alone ought to get this thread axed.
I can’t tell you what to do is illegal but all I know is that here in Toronto, Canada we had a box that was “fixed” to allow us to preview the PPV channels without any extra fee from the cable company. However nowadays most cable companies have gone to digital boxes and because of that the cable box we had no longer allows up to “preview” the channels for free because they are all in the 2-300 channel range and the traditional boxes do not go that high.
I have heard that satalite systems are available now but you need cards to activate them but to purchase one of these boxes off the net or trough magazines may be just a ripoff if your local cable company has gone to digital.
Time will be on our side though and who knows someday it may be available again to all of us who are getting gouged by these cable companies.
It happened to music after they ripped us off for so long and the greed is rampant.
It’s like a store front owner who wants $3000 a month for rent but he keeps changing teneants ever 6 months and if he just charged a reasonable amount say $1500 a month he may have a permanant tenent for 20 years, it’s just all about greed.
It’s too bad but that is life unfortuneately.
But to answer your question more directly it is my understanding that there is nothing illegal about buying your own personal cable box for viewing the channels that your cable provider shows. It’s like the phone company trying to “rent” you your telephone for 50 years and pay 1000 times what the thing is worth.
They even finally allowed us to buy the digital boxes here in Toronto in stead of renting them for $20 a month.
Don’t let their greed keep us down fight back and buy your own equipment you come out ahead in the long run…
I don’t know if it’s illegal to buy or own a “bootleg” cable box, but I’m certain it’s illegal to use it. It’s like a switchblade knife. You can own one in your collection, but you can never take it outside. The cable company is providing a service for which you must pay. No pay, no play. I agree that they charge too much and deliver too little; nevertheless, they charge what people will pay. If you don’t want to pay for it, then you don’t have to take it. If you do take their programming without paying for it, that’s stealing.
FWIW, when AT&T was a monopoly you had to “rent” the telephones from them.
Of course. Is there any doubt in your mind using such a box would not constitute theft?
Okay, the coffee’s getting into my system. I think a better analogy would be the “police radar jammers” you see advertised. Nothing wrong with buying them or having them, but if you’re caught using one you’ll be in trouble.
Exactly.
The OP really irks me. I have no patience for people who steal cable.
What are you, a child? If you can’t afford cable TV, go read a book or listen to the radio or something. This idea that you have some “right” to steal cable (or movies, music, etc) because the provider is charging more than you think it’s worth is absolute nonsense. Why is it any different than stealing a car you think is priced to high?
Even if it is not illegal to own a hot box, it is certainly illegal to hook it up to your TV and start watching free HBO.
This site seemed to have a lot of good information (US and Canada):
http://www.bush-waterhouse.com/html/the_law.html
Why would I care to have a single deadbeat tenant for $1500 a month for 20 years when I could have multiple tenants paying $3000 for the same time period? Why, as a landlord, would I give a rat’s ass who the tenant is as long as the rent check keeps coming in?
Wow, after reading that link - I’m off to get an unnecessarily expensive, but legal, cable box. I just want the occaisional PPV football game, so it didn’t seem worth it.
I get so tired of those junk e-mails I get that say “did you know you can legally own a cable box?”
Well of course I knew I could own one, but using it is a different matter.
But then, they wouldn’t sell any if they let out all the info, would they?
I see them sold on ebay.com which is in SJ, Calif, a rather conservative community. I believe that hey are supposely legal because the cable company cannot by law require you to use their own box & pay for it. So people have the right to get their own box. Whether they use it to get channels they aren’t supposed to, is a rather presumptuous matter, eh?
I’m glad to see you’ve decided to go the legal route. For future reference, we do not permit threads that might help someone break the law. I will close this thread before someone decides to post advice on how to do it.
bibliophage
moderator GQ