There's more to starting a cable company than just pirating DirecTV
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Sep 4th 2009 12:51PM
posted Sep 4th 2009 12:51PM
Blame it on the economy, lack of common sense, or lowered aspirations, but it seems like an awful lot of you guys think it's a good idea to re-sell DirecTV "on the sly," as they say in the business. Hell, this morning alone no less than two items have come across our desk to this effect -- and you know as well as we do that if both John Metzler, the owner and operator of Phoenix Communications and Pine River Cable in Michigan, is reselling premium digital channels, and if four unnamed Haysi, Virginia residents have also thought of it, then it's a growing concern. Our advice? Just don't do it. You don't want to be like OJ, do you? Didn't think so.
Read - DirecTV Sues Virginia Residents for Unauthorized Distribution of DIRECTV Programming
Read - DirecTV sues Michigan man for redistributing its content
Read - DirecTV Sues Virginia Residents for Unauthorized Distribution of DIRECTV Programming
Read - DirecTV sues Michigan man for redistributing its content
LOLz
You have got to be half brain dead to try to resell a cable / satellite companies TV signals. I'll admit I'm not going to read the article because I don't want to right now, but common people. There are a lot of things you can steal and get away with in the world, but when you take from the greedy, the greedy are gonna take you to the cleaners in court.
Common people wouldn't do this.
So....Robin hood did it, and he got alllllllllllllllll the fine bihatches...
Whoops, lol
come on*
I'm still learning my grammar. Should it be "no fewer than two items?"
Yes, it should. Fewer is used with countable nouns, less is used with uncountable or abstract nouns.
It always annoys me to see "20 items or less" at the Wal-Mart express lanes. It's sad they still haven't fixed it.
So far, the only place I've seen that switched "less" to "fewer" is Publix. But Publix is a gem of the Southeast.
Stupid is as stupid does... truly dumb moves... going to the big house boys... don't drop the soap..
Think Directv doesn't have enough attorney's for this? Get 'em boys...
attorney's what? you used the possessive there
USA....and the suing culture. Do something valuable for the people and the country!
So, they should do nothing and let theft take place?
Sue China? :T
This is exactly how the cable companies got started: Reselling broadcast they grabbing from the airwaves.
Not exactly. They added a little bit of chedda usually in the evening only like WHT did. Its also how HBO got started...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wometco_Home_Theater
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Box_Office
Umm... How did they get caught?
What, you mean like Convergent Broadband Communications (http://www.cbcdigital.com/) does in Arizona? They were sole provider at the apartment complex I used to live in there, and they didn't even bother to broadcast something over the DirecTV ads...
a neighbor of mine bought 10 "black boxes" to steal comcast. He sold them to other neighbors. All was well for about two years. Then the law suit came. 25k later he went out of the "free" cable business; no I was not one of the buyers. I am not that cheap. I don't really like my cable bill, but I pay it.
i've pirated cable for about 8 years before i stopped because i realize its alot easier and safer to just download it off the internet never got caught though.
In India, these type of guys are also known as "cable-wallas" ;)
Not like I want to do it or anything, but how does one redistribute a broadcast? You mean, like an extra box that's dedicated or split out to another TV in the same area, or using a Slingbox or some video capture setup and send it over the internet to another area altogether?
It's not too difficult. First you set up a receiver for each channel you want to distribute. Then you get an RF modulator for each one to put the composite output of that receiver onto a given TV channel (set by the modulator). You combine the outputs of all the modulators, then run then through a distribution amplifier, which splits the single input into a bunch of outputs. You send each output to a customer.
There's consumer-level equipment that's available to do this on a small scale within your own home. It can be very handy if you have lots of TV sets in multiple rooms, and you don't want to get a receiver for each one. In this case, though, you'd have RF remotes in order to be able to change the channels on the receivers, wherever they are.
Hi.
You can easily just split your dish bill in half by ordering a 2 tv setup and then running a cable over to your neighbor yourself. Just split the bill, don't tell dish that, and hide the cables.
Hide the cables? Heck you don't even have to do that. Just ask for a second receiver. Buy a dish on ebay. Set everything up and your done. The boxes will be under one account, however the physical boxes will be in different houses.
I no longer subscribe to any pay TV since I just don't watch very many programs that I can't already see on Hulu. But when I did subscribe I wanted the dozen or so local stations that were in Minneapolis instead of the 4 that were in Des Moines that Directv offered. So I simply told them that I lived in Minneapolis. But told them that my bill should be mailed to Iowa. They had no problem doing that. Matter of fact the only time it almost came back to bite me in the rear was when I needed some service done and they wanted to send a tech to Minneapolis. I told them that the service should be done in Iowa and they had no problem with that either. Yeah, strange, I know.
As for sharing boxes. I wouldn't do it because I didn't want to hear someone telling me that they ordered a bunch of Pay Per View movies by mistake.
A few years ago a friend of mine who works in the cable industry got offered a job with the Cayman Islands' (government run) cable company. The whole headend was cracked DirecTV boxes. DirecTV can't do anything about it since it's not US soil.
He didn't take the job because his ex would automatically get custody of his son if he permanently moved out of the country.
Errr...
Good story?
word on the street is that you can order one receiver at your home, then "move" take your box with you and order service at another location... then get a second receiver, for you know, your second tv. most sat companies leave the satellite at the old location.
Thanks, Mom.
How can someone or a group of people be so dumb? Did they really think that DirecTV wasn't smart enough to see that they had that many receivers under one account and wouldn't question it?
Bottom line... What these satellite companies need to do is limit the amount of receivers per account to no more than 6. If someone needs more then 6, then require a site survey be done to validate that all receivers are at that location. This would surely prohibit people from stealing the signal or stacking accounts.
It's no wonder why prices are as high as they are. Legit customers get to pick up the slack.
"It's no wonder why prices are as high as they are. Legit customers get to pick up the slack."
Um, I don't get it. Its not like the signal is metered, like electricity. Why would the prices be higher. Yes, they were stealing the signal, so to speak. But that wouldn't cause the price to be higher for everyone else.
Think about it. If no one stole the service, we wouldn't have to pay the anti-theft employee's salary. DirecTV wouldn't have to spend all that money investigating and paying lawyer fees.
How do you think DirecTV pays for all that? Surely not out of their revenue. They bump the prices up to cover these kinds of costs.
The housing association where my parents used to live did something like this, only they actually paid the fees associated with rebroadcasting...
I work for comcast and i am still trying to find a way to rip the off. But they have NOTHING of value.
I guess we could all use this, right?
Greedy basterds fuck u DTV, hope your business fails and this grows like you might think.