What he should have done is found a lawyer anyhow, waited for the lawsuit and then counter-sued. Well, that and talk to his congressman.

Edited by author 07-17-2003 10:54 AM
Well - the developments concerning piracy are scary enough but stuff like this can only happen in countries where the legal system is thouroughly fucked (sueing mcdonalds for getting obese??).
In germany for example something like this would not stand a chance in hell although laws concerning Copyright etc. similar to those in the US will be passed in August.

Another case for the US moving to a Loser Pays system.

It's too bad that the airwaves aren't considered a public resource open to all. Then tuning into their signal would be legal.
Oh, wait, it used to be. Then, IIRC, HBO's lawyers convinced the SCotUS that tuning in the signals they were broadcasting without paying for them was theft.
To paraphrase Victor Koman, "Money talks, government loves to listen, corporations can make a lot of conversation."

Is this the same reader that Soyo ships with it's Dragon+ computer? Oh my, I might be in trouble.

Re: HBO. You can tune into their signal all you want. It's the decoding without paying that will land you in court. If you want to watch the scrambled signal, feel free.

There are too many things wrong here to make an exhaustive list, but regardless of sue-for-costs or loser-pays, big corporations will have a much smaller percieved cost of losing than an individual: $5000 is a boatload of cash to me, but not a noticable ammount even for a smallish company.

Problem with a loser pays is that you are effectively fined twice if you are the individual and losing. This lets the lawyers write their own tickets.

Keeping in the bring-your-own-lawyer system, I would favor a litigant-pays system. This would dissuade individual lawsuits against corporations, but make it easier for an individual to defend themselves against the corporation. I wonder what the statistics are, but I suspect more coorporations initiate lawsuits against individuals, that the other way around.

One improvement that would limit the disparity is to cap what the litigant's payment burden to be no more than their own court costs: thus, if I sue DirectTV with my one laywer, I would need to cover DirectTV's legal costs to the same extent, while if they sue me with a legal team, then I get such a team as well.

This would allow the litigant to decide whether they are sure enough of their case to pay double legal fees, and also allow both parties to start at the same level, representation wise.

This would make these sort of harrasment suits very hard to ram down individual's throats.

Edited by author 07-17-2003 12:13 PM
There must be more to this than meets the eye. I mean this is too insane even for the U$A. I mean what this post says is that some dudes wrote to a guy who has a device for exchanging data with a computer - in effect no different than a keyboard and a PC - and said that because you own this gear, and because this gear could conceiveably be used to rip those dudes off, they want $3500 and the equipment. And the guy then handed over !!!
So let me see... if I say write to every PC owner in the States and tell them that they have equipment that could be used to rip me off or maybe to slander me or whatever. Just give me your money 'cause I'm bigger and harder than you are.
No Way!

I don't see why he paid if he was actually innocent of stealing satellite signals. I'm sure he could have found a lawyer to work relately cheap or atleast found a decent book at the library on legal proceedings and filed for summary judgement or something and got the case against him thrown out.

It's very likely that DirecTV competitor Dish Networks has some of these programmer thingies. They should sue each other.

Tweaking the legal system to figure out who pays for lawyers isn't going to cut it I'm afraid. The issue here is the de facto elimination of due process for dispute resolution. This sort of thing would be less likely if powerful corporations were made to realize that, once due process is off the table, what you have left is violence.

Sadly, I live in a state where you can't get grass roots citizens referenda on the ballot. But those of you who do, feel free to steal my bill and good luck to you.

The Citizens Protection Against Overpowering Provocation Act would make killing someone employed by DirecTV a misdemeanor, punishable by no more than 200 hours of community service. Amendments to include local cable franchisees, and RIAA member companies would also be welcome, but their consitutionality is still being assessed.

I have more than one friend that has received these threat letters from DirectTV. They did buy card writers, a perfectly legal technology. One friend received his letter over 2 years ago and has ignored it to this day with no repercussions. The other has received more frequent letters but has very good legal representation and the money to fight it.

From what I gather, DirectTV shut down a few companies selling these devices. They then assumed everyone on these companies customer lists were all in violation. I read they were going hardest against those customers that purchased more than one card reader, presumably for resale. Nonetheless, DirectTV's legal burden seems extremely high.

Anyone who fights this has, in my opinion, a very strong case indeed. DirectTV would have to prove the devices were used illegally and not just for hobbyist purposes. And not only that, but used illegally to steal their service and not the service of a competitor. That's a fairly high legal burden, but as others have pointed out, the costs of fighting this on DirectTV's turf could be far too expensive for the average citizen.

But some localities have SLAP provisions that could be used in this case. I'd also consider counter-suing DirectTV locally. Enough local lawsuits could cost DirectTV so much money as to stop this ridiculous misuse of the legal system.

Do the DirectTv guys come over, walk around, pick up family pics and say things like "Nice family you got; shame if something were to happen to them"? I think I know these guys -- either that or they've been watching too much TV.

How about a class action abuse of process lawsuit. With all recipinets of the DirectTV protection racket letters as plaintiffs.

If the facts here really are as stated Direct TV is certainly abusing legal process, filing scattershot lawsuits against owners of a legal technology based on no specific knowledge of individual wrong doing.

Direct TV has deep pockets. Someone should plumb their depths.

What's funny is that Smart card readers do not work with the current cards, the HU and the P4 series. The were only able to "hack" the old "H" cards, which have been fully fazed out. So Smart Card reader/writers have no effect on their cards in terms of stealing service.

Actually the FEDs get involved with this issues, since it falls under the FCC regulations. Of course, the used to be a law that said that the airwaves were free and stealing satalite service - i.e. hacking the encryptions/descrambling the signal was completely legal. Of course the rich people got their way.

Most people probably say "I don't want to pay for it, it's a 'free' country" and do this stuff. Of course, why should anyone have to pay to watch something that has commercials on it!?!?! Don't these "stations" make enough? That's my whole problem with cable and satalite transmittions.

Expensive? It's cheaper than cable, and you don't have to deal with the cable company's bs. $35 a month for 2 recievers with the extended package and don't have to worry about them hiking up the price ever 3 months like the cable company does seems quite fair to me!

Constitutional rights affected by Gene on Oct 23rd, 2006 @ 6:39pm
I was sued by Directv in 2003 for an access card I purchased before the DMCA in 1997. I bought the access card after having the programming I bought and paid for illegally taken away by Directv on April 10,1997. 31 state attorney generals sued Directv for having taken the programming in an attempt to get consumers to pay more while in a one year locked contract. Directv paid 11 million to consumers.
In 2003 Directv sued me as a class member for the access card I purchased to block there theft in 1997. In my state under the states constitution I have the right to protect against theft by taking passive means to stop a crime. The suit said I didn't pay them when in fact I held receipts. The suit actually pitted there right to take my programming illegally against my right to stop such a theft of my programming. The 2003 said nothing of the theft in 1997 of my programming or that I bought the access card to block the theft. It said nothing that the issue had been settled in another court and that they had paid 11 million to consumer's collectively of which I received a small amount.
In the end I could not stand up against them alone as I just didn't have the money. But what was at stake in my case was the right of the individual to take an action to stop the crime of theft on April 10, 1997. When I had to settle, the people of the US lost a little more of there freedom. This one the right to purchase an access card to stop a theft. Our government as well supported the rights of Directv to sue me placing there rights above the state constitution in light of them having taken programming illegally. Essentially, I was sued for stealing my own property. Property I had bought and paid for. The right of the people to be secure in there home and effects? The right to protect your property? When the government will not defend, the people are on there own.