Out-Law News 1 min. read

DirecTV fishes for pirates, catches innocents


US satellite TV provider DirecTV has moved its anti-piracy stance from suing companies that sell modified smartcards to suing the individuals who use them. But DirecTV is casting its net so wide that it appears to be catching innocent people, says a civil liberties group.

DirecTV uses smartcards and special readers to allow its subscribers to receive the company's satellite programmes. A pirate industry has grown up around this, involving the use of modified smartcards and readers, which allow users to illegally intercept the programmes.

DirecTV has sued the sellers, programmers and manufacturers of the cards, readers and programming devices, and also those running web sites that promote these items. Now, following the lead of the music industry, DirecTV is taking direct action against the users themselves.

But one method used by the company is to sue, or threaten to sue, the individuals who purchased items from the web sites closed down by DirecTV, without any investigation into the reason why the items were purchased.

As a result the company has, according to an article at Securityfocus.com, mailed "tens of thousands of these demand letters, and filed lawsuits against over 8,700 people around the country". The end result, according to the article, is that people are told to pay around $3,500 to settle the threatened litigation.

But some people bought items from the now-defunct web sites for reasons other than the illegal downloading of TV programmes, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Smartcards can be used for experiments in access or security, says the civil liberties group, but researchers and hobbyists are being threatened with legal action for purchasing the controversial equipment.

The EFF and Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic last week launched a web site resource to aid those threatened by a DirecTV lawsuit.

"DirecTV has threatened a smart card programmer trying to secure his art installation, as well as network administrators and engineers, all of whom are using smart cards for legitimate purposes like security or access control," said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz.

"The DirecTV Defense website provides resources to help technology purchasers who aren't doing anything wrong stand up to DirecTV's intimidation tactics because simply using smart card technology is not a crime."
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