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Another Court Loss for Echostar
October 3, 2008
The folks at Echostar Dish Network just can’t catch a break in the court system this year. Earlier this week Echostar lost again in court, this time they were defeated by the folks at the Electronic Freedom Foundation.
Echostar was seeking to obtain the identity of every customer who has ever purchased a Coolsat Brand Free-to-Air satellite receiver. These satellite receivers while legal could be easily modified to decode Dish Network satellite signals. Echostar sent subpoenas to Coolsat distributers and demanded their Coolsat customer lists including the name, address, email address and full purchase details of everyone who has purchased a Coolsat brand receiver over the past 5 years.
The EFF went to court to block these subpoenas and the court ruled in favor of the EFF because the unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of those customers who purchased the legal satellite equipment.
In addition according to the EFF it was the first time a federal court has rejected a third part subpoena on the basis of the privacy interests of non party consumers.
Back in 2001 DirecTV obtained similar customer lists and used them to demand “settlements” of $3,500 or face the wrath of the satellite company. According to the EFF DirecTV sent out more than 170,000 of those letters.
I personally applaud the EFF’s work on this case, while Echostar does have a legitimate beef with the makers of to Coolsat receivers; I wouldn’t want to see them get customers information and start a witch hunt against consumers just because they purchased one of these receivers and might have used it to steal Dish Networks services. I know a few people who got one of those settlement letters back in 2001 from DirecTV and they ended up paying DirecTV because they didn’t want the expense of going to court against DirecTV just to prove their innocence.
An unmodified Coolsat receiver is a legal satellite receiver. It can be used to pick up unscrambled digital satellite transmissions. The Free-To-Air hobby is a vast one with many users here in the United States, many use Free To Air to enjoy free programming such as international/Ethnic, Religious, Wild Feeds, Sporting Events, News feeds and other in the clear satellite transmissions which are available from a the satellites in the sky. A Coolsat receiver is only made into an illegal receiver when someone takes a Coolsat receiver and modifies it usually by erasing the software on the receiver and loading on new software which can decrypt the Dish Network satellite signal.
Dish Network is finally taking measures by rolling out a new security system that will (hopefully) make this hacking of their signals a thing of the past.
While I am against the stealing of any providers scrambled signal, I am also a supporter of those folks who legally use free-to-air satellite equipment to enjoy the free signal up there in the sky. Instead of Echostar going after these free-to-air folks, they should have been working on fixing its security system. If they would have worked to secure their systems earlier then the pirates wouldn’t have a need for these free-to-air receivers.
DirecTV use to have a major piracy problem, which they eliminated by updating their security system, it is good to see Dish Network finally working to fix theirs.
For more on this case please CLICK HERE
Have a great weekend everyone!
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on October 3, 2008 | Comments (3)
