A while ago I heard that it’s illegal to own satellite dishes in Canada, I tried looking this up on-line, and couldn’t find what I was looking for, but from what I have found, please tell me if this is correct or not. In Canada you can’t own foreign satellite dishes, just Canadian made ones. And those offer far less channels, than, let’s say, an American made one?
Sorry for sounding so confused, but I am curious about this.
I know of some US RVers who have or had the Direct TV type satelite dishes. They used a canadian mailing address to circumvent the sports blackout rules in the USA. This was when they were traveling the USA exclusivly.
About 4 years back I was in a store on Newfoundland looking at dishes and associated equipment.
Things may have changed by now.
Joel you can legally only own either a Bell Expressvu or a Starchoice satellite system in Canada.
There is a “grey” market for US dish’s (Dish Network, etc). No one I have asked can tell me if they are illegal or not. I think you can own one, but have to have a US address to get a subscription for the programming.
MtM
Why do you need a US address?
You can own satellite dishes in Canada. I think you’re referring to the ‘Grey Market’, which is basically people decoding American Satellite feeds (DirecTV and Dish) where it gets a little hazy.
Until recently, anyone in Canada was free to watch these TV services if they could decode the signal. (Neither service is available for purchase to Canadians, but the signal was there to be ‘descrambled’.) Canada did pass law (last summer IIRC) that prohibits the decoding of the signals.
In Canada, there are two main Satellite providers, Star Choice and Bell Expressview. Some of the bigwigs at Bell have government connections that helped them get the above loophole closed in record time.
The whole problem stems from a Government agency in Canada called the “CTRC”. (Think: the FCC). The CRTC controls TV & Radio content in Canada. In an effort to keep Canada Canadian, all TV & Radio have to follow guidelines that govern their content (basically a certain percentage has to be Canadian).
Canadian TV sucks, so people want to decode the American signal that is readily available (not to mention free0.
You’re right. In Canada, we have access to Canadian satellite dishes through Canadian companies. They have to follow Canadian Content rules and therefore don’t get a lot of American channels. So some people get “grey-market” satellite dishes that allow them to watch American t.v. The dishes themselves are exactly the same, only the reciever cards and maye oreintation of the dishes that are different. So its illegal in the sense that they are stealing a satellite feed from an American company. And there’s no way to contract with those contract with those companies anyways. But a lot of people do it. The bookstore I work in here in Ontario sells the American satellite t.v. guide, even though not one of our customers has any legal right to be using an American dish.
You need a US address because DiectTV isn’t allowed to sell their service to Canadians. If one gives a US address, DirecTV is none the wiser.
Ther are Canadian content issues, but that’s not the main reason for the restrictions: there’s also the issue of copyright and exclusive ditribution rights.
The Canadian satellite distributors buy the rights to provide US programming in Canada from the US companies. They spend money to buy the exclusive rights. If the US companies were then to sell subscriptions to Canadians, they would be in breach of their contracts with the Canadian satellite providers. Hence grey marketers need an American address, to make it look like they’re in the US and it’s okay for the US satellite provider to sell them a subscription.
DirecTV would be happy to accept Canadian customers. In fact, they sort of do. Although they do require a US mailing address (there’s a cottage industry of mail-forwarding firms to get around this) DirecTV accepts payment from Credit Cards drawn on Canadian accounts.
The problem, as others have said, is the CANCON (Canadian content) regulations which state that something like 20% of all content must be Canadian. It was introduced in the 60s because the US is such an entertainment media superpower it was feared that Canada might lose its cultural identity.
DirecTV really didn’t like this because these regulations helped to support DirecTV piracy. Even Canadians who didn’t want to steal (i.e. pirate) the signal had no other choice because they couldn’t buy it. Most of the information, websites, programs etc. concerning satellite piracy come from Canada.
You know, I’d love to get DirectTV from Mexico! American Spanish language television is kind of like a bad version of the WB network, you know, the chief demographic is long-distance and psychics and miracle fat burning pills/devices. I won’t deny there are some good shows, but a complete Spanish lineup would be kind of cool…
So how do these address forwarding things work? Also, same satellite and same equipment as I have for my regular DirecTV? I have the oval dish for receiving from two satellites – is the Mexican DirecTV off of one of these two satellites?
I’m in the USA, by the way. If DirecTV keeps working its way south, I wonder if the Mexicans will be wanting DirecTV from Belize. 