Posted on 02/12/2003 12:23:33 PM PST by RCW2001
Cheers,
knews hound
No, that's allowable under copyright law.
If there is an outdoor concert, and you sit in your car and listen to it, are you a theif?
Yes, if your goal is to enjoy the whole concert without paying for it (as opposed to just overhearing it in passing).
However, this is apples and oranges -- you clearly won't get the full concert experience if you hear it distantly from the parking lot. Decrypting a satellite signal, however, you are getting the *full* product, exactly as good as that received by paying customers.
A better analogy for the outdoor concert would be, "if you crawled under the fence so you could attend the concert and took an unused seat in the audience so you could receive the full concert experience without paying, would you be stealing?"
Hell yes you would.
If the concert uses radio to transmit the singer's voice to the mixer, and you hear it on your car radio; have you stolen it?
Absolutely.
Several of us say, quite emphatically 'No'.
And you're wrong.
Freeloaders. Motto: "What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine."
Libertarian freeloaders.
Not to mention that stealing is stealing, regardless of how pretty you paint its face.
I have no idea what you thought. I only know that what you posted. Apparently you disagree that I have a right to engage in friendly discourse about the subject? How else can I interpret your flaming. Without dialog how can man be free? Tyrants love to eliminate dialog. Thankfully, this board is dedicated to dialog and has put forth rules against personal attacks. Rules that YOU agreed to when you became a registered member of this board.
I have no idea what you thought. I only know that what you posted. Apparently you disagree that I have a right to engage in friendly discourse about the subject? How else can I interpret your flaming. Without dialog how can man be free? Tyrants love to eliminate dialog. Thankfully, this board is dedicated to dialog and has put forth rules against personal attacks. Rules that YOU agreed to when you became a registered member of this board.
And trying to ruin someones reputation without reason is a conservative value? Sounds more like a liberal technique!
WRONG AGAIN ... now please tell this 25 year ... advanced degreed electrical engineer ... who has worked with these signal for a multitude of years that I am wrong.
May want to get a refund on that degree... Besides the fact that I've already proven that many of your previous "Wrong again" statements were inaccurate... Go ahead and try to watch DBS with the dish inside. You won't without an amplifier.
Lastly ... the eeprom that is on the smart card is publically and readily available from Motorola and MANY other smaller companies. Programming it is easy and is done for a million other reasons than DAVE (Digital Audio Video Entertainment). These guys were selling equipment that could be used to decode satellite signals. BUT they could be purchased for other reasons. I happen to work in the industry. what i object to is the passing of BAD LAWS just so some company can make a buck.
Just because it's easy to steal from old ladies doesn't make it okay. Don't like the law? Work to get it changed.
Lastly is it theft just because a company says so ... is my neighbor stealing my music because he's listening to my very loud stereo at his house. I don't think so ... nor do I believe decoding a signal that is in my house for my own non profit use is theft either.
Again, don't like the law? Get it changed. If you are a Dish or DirecTV customer and you are pirating additional channels other than those you are paying for, you are a thief. It doesn't really matter what you think. By activating your service, you agreed to the residential agreement, like it or not. Ignorance of your obligations is not a valid defense...
Ah, but it's all some anonymous, personless corporation, and we all know how Marxists think it's cool to stick it to Da Man. The ideologues claim they want to legalize everything except fraud and force. What these social-Darwinists really mean is that the gullible should not defraud the artful and the clever, and the weak should not oppress the strong.
Any lurkers reading this thread should be informed that conservatives repudiate the infantile postings of these anarcho-ideologues.
It's the liberal's universal dictum: "Allow me to be irresponsible, and in return I'll allow you all to pay for the consequences of my irresponsibility."
Precisely. My house. Do what I want. I did not ask for the signals to be given to me, and I have made no contract with the provider as to the limitations placed upon the signals.
Your quaint ideas about treating constitutionally copyrighted material as if it were a baseball left on your lawn are ridiculous, not to mention an empty selfish rationalization for breaking the law.
I'm empty? I'm selfish? You slay me. I'm also right.
By your logic we shouldn't even be having this argument, because the article we're referring to is copyrighted and we shouldn't be reading or discussing it. Wait, you forgot about fair use provisions of copyright. It seems to me you may be getting your ideas of law from the 9th Circuit.
You keep telling yourself that as the courts rule against you, maybe it'll bring you some type of comfort as you pay your fines.
Um, nope. We have cable at my house and we pay for it. Too many trees for Dish.
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Your quaint ideas about treating constitutionally copyrighted material as if it were a baseball left on your lawn are ridiculous, not to mention an empty selfish rationalization for breaking the law.
Much as I hate to talk down to the crowd, in your case I'll make an exception
My dear friend...
You labor under the illusion that simply because something is the law of men that it is good law, and thus must be followed, as if such a thing is somehow divined from Congress above and handed us for genuflection.
Poppycock.
You would actually stand by the piece of toilet paper known as the DMCA to shake your fist at interlopers who steal that which does not exist? It's well accepted that the framers favored shorter (or no) as opposed to longer protections of copyright and patent (ie. Thomas Jefferson). The framers' ideas of 'intellectual property' were unclouded by the largess of the Disney company. Would that today's leaders had such foresight.
My dear friend, if the sun shines on my lawn, it's my sunshine. If you shine a light in my yard and I deign to make shadow puppets on my garage wall, it's my light and my shadow puppets; my right to them ends at the edge of my property.
By the same token, if you shine a light in my bedroom window at night or if you play loud music and I can't sleep, I can use the law to make you stop. That's the concept of property rights: sovereignity.
However, if you put signals into the ether and I collect them and make whatever I will of them on my property, they're mine- and as long as I do not pass your signals off to others at profit to myself, I've done nothing wrong. I have no contract with you. Your intentions for your signals are irrelevant, insomuch as they are on my property. As I said in an earlier post, a simple letter to DirectTV each month asking that they stop sending signals to your house ought to suffice to quiet yappings such as yours. Not that I think it's even necessary, but we can see that with the logical gymnastics that you're willing to perform in pursuit of this notion, one can't be too careful.
The funny thing is, I make my living in the arena of 'intellectual property', producing things you've probably actually seen. And I have a very dim view of those who cloak themselves, as you do, in arguments about things which are barely property at all. I recommend you take a look at "The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages" by Tom Bethell. It's an illuminating look (part of it anyway) at the fallacy of real property vs. so-called 'intellectual property'.
Regrettably, whole class of litigation has risen up around the notion of 'intellectual property' that's frankly Barbara Streisand. Did you see where NCR is trying to patent the internet?. Heaven help us.
You've got the snide thing down pretty well, Ichneumon, but you need to adjust the rabbit ears on your logic.
Yes, I read the article, and know about this from other sources. These people are NOT in trouble for 'stealing' satelite service.
One of my earlier posts gave more detail. Essentially, the 19 yr old's uncle worked for the company who developed a NEW Smartcard. The NEW Smartcard was very Company confidential, and contained a great deal of intellectual property (patents, ect). That's how the company justified the $14 Million dollar fines, as that is what the company invested in the card's creation. But I get ahead of myself.
The 19 yr old visited his uncle; who worked for the card company, and had a legitimate reason to have the card's tech. specs home (working on the card at home). The 19 year old stole the tech specs, and then distributed the tech specs (which were clearly labeled 'Confidential') to various web sites dealing with hacking satelite. The intention was to leak confidential information on a new product; to enable hackers to 'crack' the card before it was released to the public. This is intellectual theft. The other people involved then distributed stolen goods; thus are also guilty of the theft.
Absolutely.
Then we obviosly disagree on what "Property Rights" are. The radio waves do not belong to any one person or entity. In this case, the concert sound editors are using OUR airwaves for commercial gain. Although I may freely LISTEN (I did NOT say record and sell) to my hearts content; they are using a resouce they do not own. As such, one may monitor them at will. If they do not want to put thier music into the public domain; they are free to run cables.
Or for another case in point, if you watch fireworks from your house; then by the same rationale, you owe the person who paid for the fireworks money for the view. My rationale is that as soon as he 'Broadcast' his fireworks, the sight is as much mine as it is his. It's not his sky. Same thougths with the airwaves. Satelite companies are using Public Bandwidth.
You better tell that to a few of my friends AND my boss since we do exactly that at work cause we are laugh at you right now doing what YOU say we can't
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