You can use it. And you realize that you are paying for it through taxes.
Being used as route to a paying customer???
It’s a signal. You are not aware of it in any way, nor does it harm you in any way.
And even if your argument was valid in any way, it wouldn’t make it OK to buy an illegal descrambler.
Tell you what. Let’s just have 'em turn the damn signal off. That way, no one gets to enjoy the service, and you are no longer used and uncompensated. You can back to watching local broadcast TV.
That was rhetorical. I was trying to say that the original question about stealing the actual lightpost wasn’t analogous to the question about cable signals.
I already conceded that its not Ok to do it, spooje, because there is a law against it. Though, to be honest, the more I think about it my problem with what this guy did was not the breaking of a specific law, but that he was trying to make a profit off of it (selling a bunch of descramblers) rather than just making use of the signal for himself.
I don’t think the issue of whether the signal is harming me is a good enough reason not to be able to make use of it. If I had to go onto the property of the paying customer to make use of the signal then obviously I am stealing. But I just do not agree that making use of something that is on my property is somehow illegal, and that pretending the signal is not there is somehow more legal.
Its like the companies sending the signals are using a giant sprayhose that is getting the whole neighborhood wet. Mister Smith has paid for the water, so its legal for him to make use of the water, but for everyone else thats getting soaked its illegal for them to be anything but passive about it. I just don’t agree with that.
Sorry for that.
Even if he HAD sold some of the devices, there is no way to accurately determine the loss suffered by the companies. As I said, how many of the buyers would simply go without the service if they couldn’t get it illegally for free?