From: doconnor@sedona.intel.com (Dennis O'Connor)
Newsgroups: rec.video.satellite
Subject: Re: Request Satellite Codes
Date: 6 Nov 92 10:52:24 GMT
Organization: Intel i960(tm) Architecture
NNTP-Posting-Host: potato.intel.com
In-reply-to: wizz@bnr.ca's message of 6 Nov 92 14:44:52 GMT


wizz@bnr.ca (Boris Volk) writes:
]   Look Dave, why do own a dish then if you are interested in protection of 
] copyright? I am assuming that you own a dish, and watch feeds that are not
] intended for broadcast - ie if you viewed the Saturday Star Trek feed you are
] disregarding your own position on copyright. It doesn't matter if the picture
] is scrambled or not - ...

It matters a whole lot, according to Federal laws. The airwaves are a public
rescource, and simply tuning in a signal and listening/watching it is NOT
a crime ( although recomunicating the signal, making money off of it, or
divulging the contents os the signal to a third party usually is ). However,
scrambled signals are considered private under Federal law, and descrambling
them without some kind of consent from the scrambling party IS a crime.

The radio spectrum is a public rescource : no one owns it. The FCC regulates
who can broadcast on what frequency to prevent chaos, but simple reception
is not regulated. However, society has demanded some protection for the
valuable or sensitive material that is increasingly transmitted by cellular
phones, microwave links and satelites. So the government made repeating an
overheard phone conversation a crime, and made unauthorized decryption
of a transmitted signal a crime too. Note however that violators of these
laws are rarely prosecuted ( there have been some cellular-phone-intercept
prosecutions, I think ).

]  Secondly, you seem to be under the impression that receiving a broadcast
] signal for your own puposes is against the law.

Nope, just unauthorized decryption or communication to third parties.

] Regardless of the format of the signal, since the programmer has chosen
] a public medium - in this case satelleite transmission, it is up to the 
] programmer to take as many steps possible to prevent unauthorized reception.
] If unauthorized reception does occur, the programmer must either live with
] it, or change the encryption. If the programmer chose to deliver the
] programming via coax or other non-public media, anyone tapping into the
] line would be breaking the law. Don't you think the FBI or the programmers
] would have taken anybody to court if they thought they had a leg to
] stand on ?

Actually, the cable analogy is a bad one for you. If you order basic
cable, and then use a "chipped" decoder to view the pay channels,
you can be prosecuted for theft of services. On the other hand, if
there are non-scrambled channels on the cable that I didn't actually
subscribe to when I ordered cable, I can view those legally.

]  Thirdly, distribution of information is not illegal, even if that information
] details how to break the law (distributing descrabling keys is not illegal by
] the way, even if you get paid for it.) 

Not strictly true. Unauthorized distributions of secret, copyrighted or 
proprietary information can be a crime. And I'll bet the codes being
discussed are considered proprietary to GI, the cablecos and the
channel providers. Someone had to violate some law to place them
in the public domain. People who redistrubte them may or may not be
breaking the law, but they are certainly acting unethically.

[ content-free anti-GI tirade deleted ]

--
Dennis O'Connor			doconnor@sedona.intel.com