It could be true, or it could be fabulous trollery. It's worth noting, this was also posted in the Dish Network forums. Let's hold off the verbal beating of the OP until Friday. If it's not true, I just may be grateful enough to not berate him. I've heard just enough about content companies trying to enforce this kind of crap for several years to take what he said as a possibility. Dish has already made very clear (Look at some of the other "DRM" threads recently) that they are going to be (under protest) infecting some of their channels with so-called "DRM" to downconvert HD on certain PPV and premium channels to 480p if you aren't connected with an HDCP compatible HDMI connection. Component users, you are SOL. It's also been mentioned that recording restrictions are a possibility, so what the OP said could have some truth to it.
I just wanted to re post this one because the phrase "fabulous trollery" was in it. Just to be clear, Scott posted that this event would not be taking place as far as he knew. Did he then post something, the email froma a D* contact to throw it back up as a possibility?