The real liability lies with Nagravision, and with Echostar itself. It is an (intentionally?) mismanaged and insecure system and the FTA design/mfgrs simply exploited a lucritive market. Is that right, no, and I'm not saying that makes piracy justifiable, but it is human nature. Capitalism at it's best. Who said the Asians cant learn anything from western civialization?
Nagra had four different main itterations of the Nagra1, with half a dozen bug fix patches each. Three main itterations for the Nagra2, several sub variants, for ExpressVu and embedded CAM IRDs and at least 9 bug patch updates for Nagra2 alone and they still didnt get it right.
If Echostar wanted to take FTA down, it could have done so with current technology. That would still leave the traditional 'card bangers' and the PC based emulation SW developers, to deal with, but the potential for dynamic rotation of ECMs would have kept those users frustrated.
The question arises, does Ergen want the security enforced. Indications are no, implying a twisted bussiness sense logic. Every PPV or premium teir program that is obtained without cost, is a loss for every provider, Comcast, DTV etc. as well as DN. Initially that worked well for Dish since most in that scene were subscribers to begin with. Everything they got from Charlie for free, meant a program the competition didnt get to sell at all. Churn rate for non DN providers was rising. More marketshare losses for the competition. Now, enter DVB equipment (FTA rx's) that can be and are specifically designed to be programed to DECODE the Echostar signals and everything changes.
Now Charlie is loosing subs, because one no longer needs Echostar equipment to capture Echostar signals. (Some might profess he deserved it) The flourishing FTA market has forced a complacent and indifferent DN to finally act on the piracy issue.
We as True FTA user have benifited indirectly as well, in the way of feature rich DVB units at a reasonable price. With out this driving force, this nitch market would be underdeveloped, with no motivation to develop or improve features, and equipment would be very pricy. I suspect we will continue to enjoy the next few months in the way of clearance prices IF Nagra 3 doesnt become compromised. If it does, all bets are off.
BTW, DSS is proprietary, but no less 'hackable' than DVB. The FTA designers have shown no consideration for proprietary property, so there is no reason to believe they would for DTV. What keeps DTV secure is the allegedly sound CAM, yet a disgrundled or greedy insider's release of expoitation info out the back door, like with VCII, or a competition driven RE project, like with N1, would put DTV in the crosshairs of the same guys that have exploited Echostar's poor security and questionable business practices.