EFF Fights Echostar

[Scott Greczkowski]

Users dragged into Echostar, Freetech row
p2pnet news view TV | Freedom:- “Innocent customers should not be dragged into federal litigation just because they bought a product that other, less scrupulous purchasers may be hacking for unlawful purposes.”

That’s the EFF’s (Electronic Frontier Foundation) Fred von Lohmann on the foundation’s efforts to have attempts by Echostar to get the names and addresses of every customer that purchased a free-to-air satellite receiver rejected.

The demand came up in a lawsuit between Echostar, the company behind the DISH satellite TV service, and Freetech, the manufacturer of Coolsat free-to-air satellite receivers.

“As part of the suit, Echostar subpoenaed 17 distributors of Coolsat receivers, demanding the names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and other information of every person who purchased a Coolsat receiver over the last five years,” says the EFF, which has submitted an amicus brief submitted to a federal court.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/16772
Read the rest at http://www.p2pnet.net/story/16772

 

[AriesGodofWar]

Sounds like a witch hunt to me. Are they going to physically go to each person who purchased a legal product and see if it has been hacked or used in an illegal fashion? My guess is not as the costs would be astronomical, not to mention the invasion of privacy and presumption of innocence, so what is the alternative? Try and force everyone that purchased a Coolsat box to pay some amount or face civil litigation by presuming them guilty? Overall, I am happy with my E* subscription, however, I grow to dislike Charlie more every moment. I stupified by his recent business decisions.

 

[waltinvt]

As the article says, "D" is also guilty of similar tactics but the real significance here is how willing both providers are to trample on consumer rights.

 

[riffjim4069]

Ya know...if it weren't for these hackers, Dish Network may have only lost 24,999 subscribers last quarter. While E* has every right to protect their intellectual property and pay TV services, they are surely going about it the wrong way.

 

[ekilgus]

This nonsense occurs for the same exact reason we have an abundance of frivolous lawsuits in this country. When will we wise up and adopt a “loser pays all” policy with regard to these types of forced litigation?

I believe the UK has such a policy and they accordingly have far fewer of these types of lawsuits.

Dish, Direct, the music industry and others use these bullying tactics threatening to bankrupt individuals without actually needing to prove any wrongdoing thus getting many to settle just to save whatever assets they have.

If the “loser pays all” policy were in effect in this country you wouldn’t see many of these lawsuits because if innocent people were to fight the suit the likely outcome would be a hefty cost to the plaintiff’s since they really can’t prove any wrongdoing in the vast majority of the suits they bring.

Unfortunately, such legislation will not be forthcoming anytime soon as out wonderful congress is primarily made up of lawyers.

 

[rocatman]

This nonsense occurs for the same exact reason we have an abundance of frivolous lawsuits in this country. When will we wise up and adopt a “loser pays all” policy with regard to these types of forced litigation?

I believe the UK has such a policy and they accordingly have far fewer of these types of lawsuits.

Dish, Direct, the music industry and others use these bullying tactics threatening to bankrupt individuals without actually needing to prove any wrongdoing thus getting many to settle just to save whatever assets they have.

If the “loser pays all” policy were in effect in this country you wouldn’t see many of these lawsuits because if innocent people were to fight the suit the likely outcome would be a hefty cost to the plaintiff’s since they really can’t prove any wrongdoing in the vast majority of the suits they bring.

Unfortunately, such legislation will not be forthcoming anytime soon as out wonderful congress is primarily made up of lawyers.

Of course if the U.S. had laws where the loser paid all costs then when a large corporation "does injury" to an individual, it will be a major financial risk for that individual to sue because they risk having to pay the large legal bills that the corporation will "incur". Therefore the solution you propose might be worse as we will see less corporate responsibilty across the board since their risk of getting sued even if rightfully so will be reduced.

 

[DishSatUser]

There's also the "silent spectre" in all of this. Sure D* and E* are being overly aggressive, but I suspect it's really to deal with the crushing force of the MPAA and so on that is applied to them.

Granted, this doesn't execuse the aggressiveness but may help to explain part of it.

Remember, MPAA control the market so well that excellent technologies and services are either gutted and discontinued or forced to fit into a mold that protects their digital rights.

Ask if early adopters of HDTV sets are not slightly miffed over the HDCP requirements of Blue Ray for example. Sure, there's a moratorium on the enforcement over component connections, but in time (previously 2010) new content will enforce it.

Just posting this as extra info to consider, but at least the EFF exists.

 

[dangue]

This nonsense occurs for the same exact reason we have an abundance of frivolous lawsuits in this country. When will we wise up and adopt a “loser pays all” policy with regard to these types of forced litigation?

I believe the UK has such a policy and they accordingly have far fewer of these types of lawsuits.

Dish, Direct, the music industry and others use these bullying tactics threatening to bankrupt individuals without actually needing to prove any wrongdoing thus getting many to settle just to save whatever assets they have.

If the “loser pays all” policy were in effect in this country you wouldn’t see many of these lawsuits because if innocent people were to fight the suit the likely outcome would be a hefty cost to the plaintiff’s since they really can’t prove any wrongdoing in the vast majority of the suits they bring.

Unfortunately, such legislation will not be forthcoming anytime soon as out wonderful congress is primarily made up of lawyers.

The problem with such a policy is that it would deter all types of lawsuits, not just the frivolous ones. Even is someone has a good case, be guaranteed to win in court rarely happens. How many people of modest to little means would be forced to forego taking a legitimate claim to court because they can't bear the risk of paying attorneys fees for the other side? Remember, a lot people can only afford attorneys on a contingent fee basis (the attorney only gets paid if they win). Drastically changing the system as you propose would change the entire legal equation. Sure, it would probably get rid of most frivolous lawsuits; but it would also end up denying a lot of people access to the court system. Like Rocatman said, that's asking for corporations or people with lots of money to act as if they are accountable to no one. How many other people would be willing to take the risk of suing them and losing and paying massive fees racked up by their fleet of $400/hour attorneys?

 

[peepoop]

Wow, wonderful. I only signed up with Dish because DirecTV was doing this exact thing a few years ago. Maybe it's time to switch to cable.

 

[Sammy033]

I didnt hear about this one. It will certainly be struck down by the courts. All they have to do is ask how the information would benefit Echostar in any signifant way... which isnt much.

And I agree. It would cost them alot more to go after these guys than it would to simply write it all off as the cost of doing business. The music and movie industries learned this and pretty much leave individuals alone after all the bad press. Or at least they are now much more careful. All Echostar would need to do is sue some grandma out there. If RIAA can do a stupid thing like that with all its money and lawyers to learn the facts then Echostar can too.

 

[DJ Rob]

This reminds of something I forgot to post about that happened last Summer when I still lived in an apartment.

One evening I looked out to my balcony and saw a guy from Dish Network (he had a Dish Net Van) just below it taking pictures of my 30" Winegard dish. I went out there and asked what he was doing. He said he was told to turn in people who had "illegal" FTA satellite equipment.

I told him that my dish was 100% legal and that it is just a standard FTA dish that I bought from NewEgg. He said there was no such thing as a legal FTA dish or any legal FTA equipment PERIOD. He said it was all used to steal their signal.

I told him he didn't know what he was talking about or the law. I invited him in to show him there was no way I was stealing any signal.

Before he came in, he wanted my name and phone number which I refused to give him. He said I would be contacted by some integrity department and left. I never heard anything after that.

 

[Smith P.]

If someone could count how many lawsuits Dish had running, how much money they are spending for that ?
That will tell customers why rates raised sometimes, but sometimes freeze.

 

[jerryez]

Heh, the music industry went after the consumer for downloading free music tunes and won. Many thousands of customer were fined and now pay for music downloads.

 

[Hemi 6.1]

I'm not sure I understand what this is all about. Why are people going to get sued? Because they have FTA systems?

 

[ka1z0ku]

Suing everyone who uses a FTA setup would be like suing everyone who has a PC with BitTorrent installed on it. The capability for piracy? Sure. But just because the hardware is there doesn't mean that's what it's being used for.

 

[pabeader]

anybody remember the signal Nazis? Dish will spend any amount of money to appear to want to stop 'piracy'.
If they can get rid of the FTA systems, they could stop scrambling their signal. Save time and money that way.

 

[Smith P.]

I guess Dish's greed follow simple math:
- pirate's device use cost them ~$2800/year/device (Everything+all PPV, sport,etc);
- a few millions Coolsats sold
- could be billions in fines !!!
It will cover TiVo and myriad other lawsuits.

 

[Tyralak]

Heh, the music industry went after the consumer for downloading free music tunes and won. Many thousands of customer were fined and now pay for music downloads.

What the hell does that have to do with this? This is legal FTA. Has nothing whatsoever to do with Dish. That's like saying the music industry went after people downloading music, but they also went after people downloading music by independent artists who with complete ownership of their music were giving it away. The have no f****ng standing!

 

[Tyralak]

anybody remember the signal Nazis? Dish will spend any amount of money to appear to want to stop 'piracy'.
If they can get rid of the FTA systems, they could stop scrambling their signal. Save time and money that way.

This is just perpetuating the myth that FTA=piracy. It does NOT. FTA is different. They aren't as concerned about piracy as they are getting rid of FTA so people will have to go through them for foreign programming.

 

[rich88]

Wasn't there a thread on here a good while back about how Dish was threatening their retailers who were also selling FTA??