Before this gets shunted over to GD, I’d like to ask a GQ-ish type question. Well, make that a slight GQ-ish hijack. Forgetting for the moment legal and ethical questions, why are there no descrablers for the desktop PC?
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
I thought I posted this response last night, but can’t find it anywhere. I even did a search on my name, found a link to this thread, but still don’t see it. Humph. Anyway, here is my bit of question…
Before this gets shunted over to GD, I’d like to ask a GQ-ish type question. Well, make that a slight GQ-ish hijack. Forgetting for the moment legal and ethical questions, why are there no descrablers for the desktop PC?
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
Well, that was weird. My apologies for the double post.
actually it is not safer.
true, the dish cannot send up to the satellite, but the satellite can send down. the satellite can scan for “fixed” access cards.
access cards tell the satellite reciever what channels you can recieve, but the older cards can be fixed, called H cards, allowing you to recieve all the channels. directv learned of this and released the HU card (about a year ago), which to my knowledge, has not been hacked yet.
the subscribers who were signed up prior to a year ago who were using the H card all recieved HU cards in the mail. well, at least most of them.
since there are some genuine subscribers who are still using the H card, directv has not turned off the H feed yet, which is why people are still hacking the H cards.
as for them costing $700, that’s a little high. they sell the H cards on ebay for about $300 to $350. most of them are just card only, and you would have to take them to someone so they can “fix” it for about $50.
actually, it is not safer.
true, the dish cannot send up to the satellite, but the satellite can send down. the satellite scans for “fixed” access cards, and if it finds one, it kills the feed to that satellite, along with the access card.
access cards tells the satellite reciever what channels you can and can’t recieve. however, the old access cards were hacked and allowed access to all the channels; known as H cards. directv learned of this, and as a result, released the HU card, which to my knowledge, has not been hacked yet (on a side note, there have been a total of 4 different access cards. the two cards before the H card have all been hacked, so directv has killed the feed to any of those cards trying to recieve).
any subscribers prior to a year ago who were using the H card all recieved HU cards in the mail to use instead. well, mostly all of them. either because they have moved or just don’t know how to install the card.
because of this, directv is still allowing the H feed along with the HU feed (the H feed probably won’t last much longer though, since it has been more than a year). and because there is still an H feed, the H cards are still being hacked.
but the satellite constantly scans for fixed H cards, and kills them immediately once they are found. hackers have done everything to prevent this, like writing software on the card that tells the satellite it is an HU card, or enables the card so that if the power is turned on and off, it can reset it, and a whole plethora of other things.
as for them costing $700, that is a little high. they sell on ebay for about $300 to $350, most of them are just sold as card only, unhacked. you would have to take them to someone to fix it for about $50. or you can do it yourself if you have the right equipment, which you can buy in the back of those magazines.
(oh well, i revised it, and ended up posting twice.) =)
Actually, I personally call it “dredging up a post from before I became a moderator.” 
That said, the question of whether obtaining cable signals or MP3s or software or whatever without the permission of the owner of the intellectual property and outside the valid legal exceptions qualifies for the term “theft” is not a debatable premise. Nor does the conclusion require a moral judgment of any sort. It is settled fact. This discussion will apply both to this thread and the various MP3 threads in which the same silly and factually incorrect claim is being made regarding the definition of “theft.”
Let’s take a quick peek at the 7th edition of Black’s Law Dictionary. Under “Theft” we find two definitions, the first of which is as follows:
Using this definition alone (or worse still, a regular dictionary definition) one may try to assuage his/her (hopefully) guilty conscious by rationalizing that since the intellectual property owner still retains the same (infinite) number of copies of his or her work, the misappropriator has not committed theft but rather some amorphous copyright technicality. But they are factually wrong. Let’s go to the second definition.
Stealing=theft. This is a pretty simple concept for all but those who choose to believe that they are stealing (or “violating copyright”, or whatever) without committing theft. But just in case any doubt remains, lets go to that most glorious of all things, the new word in Black’s Law Dictionary, a rare occurrence that occasions dancing in the streets outside of West Publishing and much grimacing by lawyers who have to go out and plunk down another $45 to stay current.
Has the copyright law been expanded too far in the property creators’ favor? Great Debate. Should misappropriating a piece if intellectual property be “theft?” Great Debate. Is it “theft?” General Question. The answer is “Yes”. If that hurts the sensitive feelings of a few thieves, well too bad. As Cecil says, we do not vote on the facts.
[Note: This message has been edited by manhattan]
Just for the hell of it, I’ll add a bit of law to this discussion. New York Penal Law section 165.15 provides that
Or, in short, use cable TV descramblers is the crime known as Theft of Services.
You don’t have a thing to worry about. I’ll have the jury eating out of my hand. Meanwhile, try to escape.
Sig by Wally M7, master signature architect to the SDMB
Irrelevant. The beliefs of the participants in the argument have no bearing on the facts.
Well, no. Their ‘facts’ disagree with your ‘facts’. That suggests that one or both parties aren’t using real facts.
I think the problem here is in ‘Broadly’. This is a specific case we’re talking about. I don’t see how your generality outweighs my specifics…
If theft is the removal, with intent to deprive the owner of, property; generally all removal of property the owner doesn’t want, then that means that theft is “the removal, with intent to deprive the owner of, property”, the following phrase just indicates that most cases of property removal are with intent to deprive.
So, the fact that there is a practice referred to as cybertheft means that it’s real theft and not something else mistakenly labelled?
You’re using a fallacy here, appeal to the masses or unworthy authority.
The fact that enough people say something for a phrase to be coined doesn’t mean that the phrase is accurate. Witness the “African-American” GD thread where A-A is being used to describe Haitians and Egyptians are excluded. The popularity of something doesn’t indicate that it’s correct.
Similarly, you are refering to a law journal, in defining a spoken term. The law journal is not a noted authority on the usage of the English language.
No we don’t, so if you can show me something I believe to be a fact, I won’t argue that fact.
You haven’t shown me a fact. You’ve shown me conjecture by from various sources, none of which seem to be authorities on the subject.
I still think “theft” is pretty clearly defined as excluding unlawful use of information property, actually means something else.
Note that I don’t disagree that copying a copyright work is unlawful, I just disagree that it’s theft. And yes, I think this is a very important decision.
And finally, where do you get off arguing with the authority of Cecil? It’s not like he’s personally checked your facts and given them the stamp of his wisdom.
If you had posted a relevant fact, I wouldn’t be debating it, much less calling a vote on it. I don’t feel you did post such a thing though.
(Yes, I’m sure your fact can beat up my fact.)
I’ll say. A big bit. But it doesn’t prove anything except that “theft of service” is a term used to refer to unauthorized duplication of a cable-TV signal. It no more indicates actual theft than “piracy” in the same context refers to salty sea dogs waving cutlasses.
The term of theft was defined in our language before the New York penal code existed, so I think the authority of a dictionary is more relevant here.
Manhattan said:
> Actually, I personally call it “dredging
> up a post from before I became a
> moderator.”
Oh. Okay, that makes more sense.
Incidentally, I wasn’t referring to your assertation that copyright violation = theft as being witnessing. I was talking about staements like:
> Your inability to acknowledge that theft
> is in and of itself morally wrong is just
> about 100% of everything I need to know
> about your character.
and
> You are committing a crime, violating the
> social contract and debasing your own
> sense of morality for a few bucks a month.
Your Quadell
OK, boys and girls, a bit of legal history here.
United States criminal law is derived from the common law of Merrie Olde England that was formed centuries ago. Under common law the crime of larceny (more commonly known as theft) was defined, as mentioned before as “the felonious taking and removing of another’s personal property with the intent of depriving the true owner of it.”
Now this definition was formed centuries ago when almost all of the personal property that people owned was tangible personal property, things that you could see, feel and touch – pigs, wagons, gold coins, tools, crops, etc. When all personal property (which means everything except real estate) is tangible things, the definition neatly covers most types of theft.
Roll forward to the 19th, 20th and now 21st centuries. A large part of the value in the economy is in intangible personal property and services (along with tangible stuff that is delivered by metered pipeline like water or gas). When these things started getting valuable, surprise, people started taking them without authorization. Well, the people were taking these things soon made the argument that they didn’t fit into the 16th century definition of larceny, so they couldn’t be convicted.
In response, legislatures pretty darn quickly enacted theft of services laws. Yes, they are not the common-law definition of larceny, but they’re theft nonetheless.
Let me give some other examples of things criminalized in the New York theft of services statute:
OK, boys and girls, all of these things are theft. No, they are not exactly the same sort of theft (common-law larceny) as making off with your neighbor’s chicken, but they are theft nonetheless. Just because the world has advanced and created new types of goods and services that don’t fit into the centuries-old definition of common-law larceny, does not make these any less of a crime or any less wrong.
So, WhiteNight, you are correct that “term of theft was defined in our language before the New York penal code existed,” but that does not mean that the term (or more importantly the law) defining theft cannot change meaning in response to technological change.
You don’t have a thing to worry about. I’ll have the jury eating out of my hand. Meanwhile, try to escape.
Sig by Wally M7, master signature architect to the SDMB
About the Satellite Descamblers: The only system you can do it with is the DirecTV systems. And then you can buy a system premade but they don’t last too long because of DirecTV sending stuff down the pipes. The other way is to make sure you have an older card in your reciever, then program the card with your computer and a card programmer. I won’t get into any details (I have never done it so I can’t get into details) but if you want more info check out alt.dss.hack
Billdo, I do agree that everything you quoted falls under Theft of Service, but theft of service then is inappropriately named. There are many words that would work for ‘taking’ intellectual property and still leaving it for the owner, theft is not one of them. It’s the one that has a dictionary definition that specifically rules it out.
I know people use inappropriate terms. People call unlawful copying “Piracy” as it it involved ships and cannons. That doesn’t mean they’re right, it just means the software/music industry was pretty successful in getting people to use an emotionally charged word for something that they don’t like.