It’s perfectly legal to purchase a cable box/descrambler of any variety you choose. The sales are not ‘black market’ and are totally legit, even if they have the ability to decode every pay station. The posters participating in those threads ignorantly called the ‘black market’ and implied they were illegal, and the mod never assumed differently.
Their ignorance was validated by a mod closing the thread in GQ. The mod assumed the talk was about illegal activity, but it wasn’t.
Sure, it’s legal to buy them. And some cable companies (maybe all for I know) will let you use them in lieu of renting their boxes, provided you still pay for the signal.
But that’s not what the question seemed to be about. To me it seemed to be about how to steal the signal, which is theft pure and simple. I’m not the only one who read it that way, and it was only a matter of time before someone would have provided tips on how to do it.
Well, that’s not right. It’s a possibility someone may have asked something illegal at some point, but it was not a certainty. And in that respect, you could say that about any thread at any time. I could conceivably ask you guys right now where the best spot to buy some cocaine would be.
Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to wait until someone actually did something wrong before closing a thread?
Once someone answers with something illegal, the mods will have to delete the post, or it will be available for everyone. Given that, it’s a bad idea to just wait for the illegal info to get posted.
Not only that, but once illegal info was being sought, then the thread can be closed so no one can provide the information.
But closing an entire thread on the slim chance that at some point someone might decide to ask for illegal info? Unfathomable.
I notice we’re allowed to ask questions about illegal drugs, such as what are the side effects, or debate whether such drugs should remain illegal, but we’re not allowed to ask how to obtain said illegal drugs. Given the logic indicated in this thread, all threads that discuss illegal drugs in any way, shape, or form should be summarily closed.
Why is this logic applied to some things and not others?
Use some common sense. Nobody buys cable boxes to use them as fancy paperweights. If you spend the money on one and don’t hook it up, you’re an idiot (an honest idiot, but an idiot nonetheless). Though technically legal to own one without using it, do you really think anyone does.
If you’d be interested in debating the legality or ethics of cable descramblers, I’m sure that would be a fine Great Debate (I am not a mod). But to whine about a thread regarding where to purchase an instrumentality of cable piracy is just silly.
I’m not whining, actually. I’m asking for consistent ruling. If a drug is illegal, we can debate whether it should be in GD or IMHO. But apparently, even if these cable boxes are legal, we’re not allowed to ask questions about them. Does this not strike you as incongruent?
Furthermore, I don’t know enough about cable boxes themselves to guarantee that everyone who ever buys one is using them in an illegal manner. Yes, this is naive, but it’s not germane to the issue - the point is, they’re legal to own.
There are two things at work here. First, even though ownership of the boxes is legal, there’s no good legal reason to want to own a box. It’s very reasonable for the mods to conclude that telling someone how to get a box is in support of illegal activity, even if it’s not explicitly illegal. For that matter, it’s not (so far as I know) illegal to tell someone where to buy drugs, so long as you don’t actually go buy them. But if someone asked where to buy drugs, I think that one could easily conclude that telling them would be in furtherance of illegal activity.
Secondly, the Chicago Reader is a newspaper. As such, it depends for its very existence on intellectual property laws, and it is in the Reader’s best interest for intellectual property laws to be interpreted strongly. Hence, the moderators draw a stricter line with regards to intellectual property laws than with respect to other laws. This is also why discussion of filesharing programs is so curtailed on these boards.
Note, also, that neither of these means that all discussion of such devices is verboten. You can, for instance, debate the ethics of such devices in the appropriate forum. You just can’t start any discussion which looks (to the mods) like it would be leading to actions of dubious legality.
As far as I know, it’s not permitted to tell anyone on this board where they can find illegal drugs. These threads are closed, and the posters are admonished.
Now, assuming you’re talking about drugs that are illegal, then I can see how telling someone where to find them could certainly lead to illegal activity. But if you’re talking about legal drugs, then there’s no reason at all to assume the person will use them illicitly. Same with these cable boxes. (And if they could only be used illegally, wouldn’t they be illegal?) If I were to tell someone where they could find a cable box, I’m no more advocating that these boxes be used illegally than I would if I were telling someone where to find legal drugs.
Ah, wrong there, dan. An example: cough syrup is legal, but I’ll close a thread where someone explains how to get high on it. The well-known caveat being that a drug is not to be used for a purpose other than the explicitly stated.
The cable box is a legal-to-own means to an illegal goal. No one can provide a legal use for it.
Cough syrup is a legal-to-own means to a legal goal, but it can potentially be used in an illegal manner.
Ad 1.: discussion will inevitably lead to illegal practices.
Ad 2.: discussion might lead to illegal practices, but could be completely benign.
I do see the difference, and I wish I knew more about said boxes. If they have no legal purpose, why are they legal to own? Seems odd. Guess the lawmakers haven’t gotten around to making ownership itself a crime.
Using your logic, if the cable boxes could be used for a legal purpose, then you’d leave the thread open?
If there are no legal reasons to use it, then I see why such a thread would be closed. If, hypothetically, there would be a legal reason to use it, I would think the thread would remain open.
If in practise, the thread topic is used for legal purposes in 95% of all cases (like the cough syrup exampe), the thread will probably stay open with a moderator keeping a close eye on where the thread is headed. The lower that probability, the bigger the chance the relevant mod will say, “Screw that, we all know where that’s headed. Closed”. My guess is that bibliophage just made that judgment call, and decided to close it.
And I realise that it’s not a clear-cut scenario with strict rules, but such is moderating a message board, I’m afraid.
Well, I do understand that these things must be taken on a case-by-case basis, anyway. There isn’t a be-all, end-all statement one can make to cover all cases at all times, so subjectivity must take over.
And ain’t it grand we can have this discussion without it being inflammatory?
I’m jumping in the middle of this and if someine said this I’m sorry, but in the US it is illegal for the cable company to force you to use their boxes. You are allowed to buy your own box and use it provided you notify the cable company you have it, and you pay for any channels you receive. Many people own their own box so if they move they don’t have to worry about returning it.
As a matter of fact, I recently was pricing cable boxes for a perfectly legal reason. I have been paying for cable for about 15 years, dutifully paying my monthly rental for one, and later two, boxes. About three months ago, some water got spilled on the box in the bedroom. The box was off at the time, so I dried the exterior and left it off for several hours in case any had leaked inside. When I turned it back on, there was no signal; presumably something had shorted out (thinking back, I probably should have unplugged it). When I called AT&T to see about having it replaced, I mentioned the possibility that the box might have been water-damaged and was told that if an inspection of the box showed that the malfunction had been caused by customer misuse (or some such phrase) I would be charged $150.00 to replace it.
I cancelled the service call and went on-line to price replacement cable boxes. I had no trouble locating cable boxes which claimed to be the equivalent of my cable box, but they were all priced at about $250.00. I was trying to decide which would be more cost-effective, considering the continued cost of monthly rental, when I received a notice that I could upgrade my service to digital cable. The offer was good, and I decided to go with the upgrade and hope they would just junk the old box without checking it. Apparently they did, as it’s been a month now and I haven’t heard from AT&T.
Also, on the subject of “legal use for cable boxes” I quote from a booklet AT&T has sent me:
(bolding in second paragraph mine)
Note the use of “should” and “may” and the phrasing of the final sentence. In my search for a replacement box I came across numerous references to FCC regulations which permit ownership and use of cable boxes and descramblers as long as the user is paying for access to the signal. I don’t have time to dig them out again right now, but it looks like AT&T is tiptoeing around this regulation by telling customers that it is legal to own a non-AT&T box but implying that they have the right to refuse to allow it to be hooked up to their cable.
