Your cable company pays fees for the right to make certain channels available to you … CNN, Discovery, et al … The companies that own these channels expect the cable companies to deliver a certain number of viewers, which is one way they determine their advertising rates. A channel available in 20 million homes is going to command higher ad rates than one that is available in 2 million. If the cable company delivers a larger audience, the fee is lower - just like buying in bulk at your local warehouse store. People who are stealing cable are underreported in the count of total viewers, thus, it costs more for the cable companies to offer the channels to everyone else who is paying.
Remember, the whole point of television is to get you to watch commercials.
I’m not convinced. Sure, if I climb a telephone pole and splice in a line, I’ve degraded the signal.
But, if the signal is coming right into my apartment, right to an unterminated connector on my living room wall, how do I degrade the signal by hooking up my TV? Don’t I actually improve the signal for others by terminating the open end of the cable?
In this case, where the cable company has just not disconnected the service when it should, then it may not even be considered signal theft. For example, you call the cable company and say “Cancel my account, disconnect my cable.” If they stop billing you but don’t sever your connection, why should you stop watching it? If it were water or gas, you are actually draining resources from the company. But, in the case of a TV signal, isn’t it better if the signal is terminated? You’ve asked the cable company to shut you down and they haven’t - I don’t see how it can be illegal or immoral.
The honest cable thief calls the cable company and truthfully explains that he will do without cable rather than ever paying for cable. The nice cable company hooks him up and charges him $20, which he pays, then never bills him for his monthy usage. This honest cable thief does not cost the cable company money.
Unfortunately, a dishonest cable thief will say the same thing, even though he would pay for cable if he has to. Again the nice cable company hooks him up and charges him $20, which he pays, then never bills him for his monthy usage. This dishonest cable thief DOES cost the cable company money since he would be paying them monthly fees.
Soon the nice cable company finds it has so few subscribers that it has to charge $1000 a month, instead of it’s planned $40 a month to break even. It has as many users as it planned on, but very few subscribers. The only way it can make money is to charge everyone who gets cable.
It’s the dishonest cable thieves that ruin it for the honest thieves.
If the cable company chooses not to turn off the cable, then you are not stealing service.
Subscription based items [cable, newspapers, magazines] often continue after the subscriber moves, or even cancels them.
If you move into an apartment where the previous tenent had cable, it might be left on. The cable company treats it as a trial subscription [which saves them the cost of sending someone to turn it off] hoping you will sign up.
Plugging a TV into an outlet on the wall is not stealing a signal. If they deliver cable into your house or apartment, without you asking them to, its free. If you go outside and hook up the wire to feed your house, you are stealing.
yeah, thats what happened to me. i moved in Dec, and my new apt still has cable. why should i call to alert them to this? it’s not my fault that they haven’t turned it off. and i have to deal with some hideous jack protruding from my wall. i’m not going to complain when it gets turned off, but i’m not going to ask them to turn it off either.
I have a bit of a differnet analogy on this one. Most (not all) people who steal cable would probably pay for cable if there was no way they could steal it. Hence, the cable company is out that money. For people that are getting cable for free but wouldn’t pay for it anyway (IE - the company hasn’t disconnected it yet) I don’t think they are loosing a red cent.
I think it is kind of akin to Napster or some software piracy. (Don’t get me wrong, I have no use for pirates). Record Companies are saying the are loosing MILLIONS AND MILLIONS a year because of these MP3 downloads. I can only speak for myself, but there is no way in hell I would buy 90% of the CDs that the MP3s I have came from…I only downloaded it because there was a good song that I liked, but under no conditions would I spend $15 for that CD…I would have done without anyhow.
Same thing with some software piracy. Just because you have the software doesn’t necessarily mean the publisher is “out” that cash from your copy, since you more than likely would not have bought it anyway.
That being said, especially with the issue of software piracy, I think that it can be a serious crime and should be “somehow” more strictly enforced.