Since the judge calculated the $180 million restitution based on an alleged $900 million “loss”, wouldn’t they have to get free programming for 250 years?
Of course it’s illegal, but there’s definitely a case to be made that you should be free to perform whatever mathematical operations you want on EM signals that come through your house.
Well, I am not sure what the case is. You do not have absolute rights to anything. Even property rights are very limited. You cannot use your property in a way which would prejudice other people’s interests and you do not even own the radio waves. You cannot make copies of a CD just because you own it. The fact is that the laws consider it a good thing to protect intellectual property rights and I agree. If everybody could see the programs without paying for them who would spend money to put the programs out?
There’s someone’s kids who are happy that debts die with a person…
Neither does the satellite company.
Being able to listen to radio signals that are coming through my house is as natural as being able to look out the window, IMO - after all, they’re both forms of EM radiation. If someone walks past my window and wants to charge me to look at him, I can look at him for free anyway, because the light is coming into my house whether or not he wants it to.
If everybody can see the programs without paying for them, the satellite company needs to work on its encryption.
But let’s suppose for the sake of debate that they can’t make money unless the government prevents people from intercepting broadcasts that come through their own homes. Is that really so bad? There are other business models that work for distributing TV content. Are DirecTV and Echostar entitled to keep making money by blanketing the whole country with their signal, simply because they’ve been making money that way in the past?
And why would you assume that he would stop after selling to the 5000? I don’t think he would. He would sell to another 5000 and another… that’s what criminals do.
These businesses provide a service. A service that a lot of folks want. It isn’t free for them to send the signal. They have to pay for liscensing, power, taxes, equipment, employees and a hundred other things. They should be allowed to profit from that service. And you should NOT be allowed to get it for free. Those who get it without paying for it are theives Those who scheme to help others steal it are conspirators and theives.
5 years (which he’ll probably do 2) and 300k in fines in NOT at all unreasonable. He should pay the fine to the court (and in a lump sum, not in easy installments), I grant you. But this would hardly be the first time the court has ordered a criminal to pay restitution directly to the victim.
This guy would have been so much better off beating up an old lady and stealing her purse.
What sentence would you get for a first time mugging in the US?
My usual comment:
Some people are held back from stealing by their conscience. For the others we have the law.
Hooray, and roll a few more heads.
Mr2001, I guess you would also favor the government cease all efforts to protect any private property rights and just let the owners of property defend it as best they can?
The broadcasters of that content have been granted the right to control who gets it and rightly so IMHO. trying to get to it without paying is stealing, plain and simple.
If I buy a book why can’t I make copies and sell them? Why can’t I copy someone else’s invention? Why can’t I just grab the lightposts off the street?
And if I may ask:
Why this uproar over the ‘attempted’ part? What, he’s supposed to get a break for being a fuckup as well as theif?
Personally, I would like to see more people who have pirated cable and satellite get nailed, which would be most of my neighbors and someone related to me via marriage.
On the flip side, I would love to see the cable and satellite companies bring their prices down to a more reasonable level for just Basic Stations.
Fantasy land is the next left.
I have Cablevision, get roughly 50 channels, and pay (after taxes and all) $70 a month. A friend of mine down the street pays $40 a month and has Time Warner digital cable with about 400 channels. As long as a company like cablevision has no competition in their area, I’ll be paying whatever they want. I won’t even get into the YES channel debacle.
Only satisfaction I can have is that there is nothing good to watch with 400 channels either.
>> As long as a company like cablevision has no competition in their area, I’ll be paying whatever they want.
You know, there is life outside cable. Plenty of things to do out there. I don’t have cable and I manage to enjoy myself. Playiong with my pizzle if free and more enjoyable than cable.
Nope. There is a difference between physical property and information. For one thing, stopping real theft doesn’t require any restrictions on free speech or the right to tinker.
Well, yes, at least as far as restitution goes. You don’t scour the city looking for the would-be victim of an attempted kidnapping. You don’t order vandals to clean off their graffiti if they were caught before they drew any. You don’t order someone to pay back stolen money when no money was stolen.
A fine paid to the court would have been appropriate, but paid to the satellite companies? They never lost that money, and they did nothing to earn it from this guy. Let them make their own profits.
Here we go again. Just because you don’t understand the concept of “intellectual property” doesn’t make it any less real. Just because you can’t comprehend there was a loss doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.
If tomorrow you decide the concept of “ownership” doesn’t make sense, you still won’t be able to steal physical things without fear of legal reprisal.
Like I say: Morality keeps the good guys in line. For everyone else we have the law.
I agree with you here. But there should be a fine and it should really, really hurt.
But the article does suggest that they have lost money due to this guy before. He and others like him are keeping these companies from reaping their revenue like they have a right to. The article says they lose billions per year due to schmucks like him (and hisself).
I want more proof than what an article says, unless the article has attribution for the data.
The companies don’t reap their revenue, they rape it. When I was with Dish Network, they screwed me over and their technical support was all but useless.
But spooje he was not on trial for those things was he. Can american courts punish you for something you certainly did but are not actually on trial for? I certainly hope not.
People are saying this is OK becasue punitive damages shoul go both ways. Fair nough but I thought punitive dameages were imposed by civil courts where jailtime is not a possibility. therefore in a civil court, financial punishment is the only option. This guy got jail time, so he was in a criminal court wasn’t he? So his punishment should be a fine and/or jail time as the judge, jury and the law see fit.
He shouldn’t pay “restitution” because the ofense he was on trial for resulted in no loss for the company.
Just my .02$ as an interested outsider.
[Caveat lector: This post has one or more speling errors.]
Mockingbird, I agree, the article is very badly written, and very light on facts.
atarian, he is only being punished for what he did, which was to conspire and scheme to defraud. No, the courts can only punish you for what you are on trial for. However, when you are convicted, they can look at your previous record when considering your punishment.
And his punishment IS a fine and jail time. The fine being paid to the companies he was conspiring to defraud. Again, I don’t like that part of it. I feel the fine should be paid to the court. I also feel the fine should be higher and in one lump some, not easy payments.
Welcome to the SDMB, Bill! You’ll soon find that reading the OP before posting to a thread is a handy way to avoid embarrassment.
There was no loss because he sold no devices. See how that works? DirecTV and Echostar might have lost revenue if he had gone through with his plan to sell these satellite hacking tools to people… but he didn’t.
IMO, the question should be more like “Why can’t I just use the light that is coming from the lightposts off the street?” I realize that there is a law against “stealing” the cable signal, and because this guy broke that law he should be punished.
But I think that the rules (should) change when my home/property is being used as a route to send the signal to a paying customer, and I’m not being compensated in some way.
Let’s say my neighbor has a bunch of outdoor lights that he uses at night to light up his property. Is there any reason I shouldn’t be able to benefit from the electricity my neighbor is paying for, by making use of the light that is coming onto my property?
I realize that this analogy isn’t perfect – light isn’t quite comparable to intellectual property – but its the best I could come up with.